


Ghost Notes

by hyenasaurus



Category: No Straight Roads (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Author's First Fanfic, Eventual Found Family, Gen, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Implied unrequited Mayzuke but not focus of the work, It's guilt hours for everybody baby, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Supernatural Elements, Survivor Guilt, Temporary Character Death, energy being Zuke, qwasa!Zuke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27639193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyenasaurus/pseuds/hyenasaurus
Summary: 'A ghost note is a musical note with a rhythmic value but no discernible pitch. In drumming, they are notes played very softly between accents or a backbeat, often used to 'fill out' a groove without being distinct.'Mayday struggles to find purpose after a terrible fate shifts Bunk Bed Junction from a dynamic duo into a solo act.Elsewhere, Zuke awakes alone, stranded without a body but with a drumbeat in his heart and a power in his veins.Separated by circumstance, two bandmates come to the same conclusion simultaneously: It's not over. Not yet.(Aka: The one where Zuke becomes a Qwasa wraith.)
Relationships: DK West & Zuke (No Straight Roads), Mayday & Tatiana | Kul Fyra (No Straight Roads), Mayday & Zuke (No Straight Roads), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 72
Kudos: 137





	1. Intro, part 1 - Aka I was trying to have a good time but then my drummer Mcfreaking died

**Author's Note:**

> So, this last Halloween has left me in a mood.
> 
> This is my first time writing/posting in any vaguely 'serious' capacity as I am primarily a visual artist, so please bear with me. I'm not sure how much steam I'll have to drive this anywhere, but I am having fun writing it, so that's a good sign for me.
> 
> Warning: That 'major character death' warning up there? Yea, -here- is where it comes into play. He gets better, but if you don't want to read a mildly graphic death scene, I would suggest skipping the end.  
> Also watch out for the POV change mid chapter.

The sky gleamed in shades of gold and orange, flickers of the sun reflecting off the skyline like firework sparks. The crowd hollered with rapt attention as the holographic forms of the NSR artists, each with a personality larger than life, turned and waited for them to take their place as their leader in this song.

 _The adoration, the attention, the music!_ It was everything she could've ever dreamed of when she took up her guitar for the first time and felt its strings, and decided to follow her heart.

...If it weren't for the falling fireball in the sky turning the scene from inspirational to downright apocalyptic, that is. Instead of a daydream, Mayday felt like she was stuck in a disaster movie - one where the directors got swapped mid production and the new director decided the best way to spice up Batman and Robin was to add a dose of Armageddon.

Was it the sparks from the reflected sun or from the falling satellite she had noticed in the first place? She got no clue and not really any desire to double-check.

Mayday vibrated with nervous energy, watching as the fireball drew close. Everything was happening so fast, and it was so hard to follow. Her mind was still reeling from the Kul Fyra revelation and _now_ she was expected to give the show of their lifetimes? Heck, less than twenty minutes ago she was still in _'beat down Tatiana'_ mode!

The platform ascended slowly, unheeding of her worries and mental pleas to speed it up. Putting them ever closer to a fiery end, _a fiery end she unwittingly brought about_ , with every second spent taking them up.

_So fast. So slow. Hurry up. Hurry up please I am begging you piece of-_

She snapped out of her anxious spiral as she felt a shoulder gently but purposefully bumping her own, jostling her. It was enough of a distraction to allow her to cut off her derailing brain, and exhale.

Mayday looked briefly through the corner of her eye at her drummer. When he noticed her staring, the edges of his lips curled up into a knowing smile before his half lidded eyes trailed back to the flaming horizon.

She found herself smiling back.

She may have begun feeling guilty about dragging him into her misaimed revolution, but she was so glad that he'd decided to stick around to the bitter end, despite the danger. She was not sure what she had done to earn Zuke's endless patience and loyalty, but it filled her with a soft feeling in her chest like ten thousand pictures of cute kittens surrounded by a sea of pillows.

She wouldn't have been able to make it this far without him. 

She... was not sure she would be able to function without him right now.

The Grand Qwasa's platform jerked to an abrupt stop as they reached the height of the other artists. Mayday stumbled slightly _(thank goodness there's only Zuke here and he's not gonna tattle)_ before she returned her attention to the sky. Right. Satellite. The distraction worked, her nerves had left her, and now she only had to focus. She breathed in as her fingers settled along the familiar strings.

 _Zuke's got her. Kul Fyra's got her. The NSR artists - Team Sayu, 1010, Yinu, DJ Broken Record and that Nadia girl- they got her too. She's got this.  
_ _They all got this. Together._

Zuke raised his drumsticks, holographic drumset flickering with a short drum solo. He roared.

"This is it! There's only one way to end this!"

His red eyes met hers. They burned with an uncharacteristic fire. She struck a power chord that echoed through the city.

“C’mon guys! All together now!”

She watched the giant holograms of their fellow artists strike a pose in preparation. The largest showstopper in history was inbound.

_Bunka!  
_ _Junka!  
_ _Shakalaka!_

Above them, the Qwasa shone like a small sun.

  


___

“We don’t deserve any hero’s welcome.”

Zuke was snapped out of his fretting over her guitar by that explanation. He looked back up to Mayday, frowning with confusion. There was a smile on her lips, and the satellite-confetti on her hair made her look very festive, but her starry eyes seemed so sad.

“Not after all the things we’ve done.”

May stepped away from him, towards the edge of the descending platform. The sound of the cheering audience calling their name did not seem to improve her mood. Along the way, she dropped her loyal instrument, now broken down and unusable. 

Though it was possible that the guitar might never sound the same ever again _(not without a kind of money spent on repairs that an indie band could barely afford)_ , that she would abandon such a sentimental thing definitely meant to Zuke that something was very wrong.

She only stared forlornly at the crowd below.

_Ah._

He understood.

The Grand Qwasa rumbled and shuddered to a stop, glowing a blinding brilliant light as its rings struggled to keep turning at a steady pace. He raised an arm to block some of the light. Something told him the Qwasa was not made to handle this many musicians rocking out at once, but he could hardly wonder about it right now. If anything, it was a good thing that they could generate a surplus of power by working together instead of trying to override each other.

“You guys did it! You two saved the NSR tower!”

_Oh god, it’s the reporter guy._

May stepped out of the Qwasa, reluctantly approaching. Zuke took a moment to watch her dejected demeanor before he exhaled, following after his bandmate. Unfortunately, the news reporter had just realized NSR’s unexpected saviors were even more unexpected than he originally thought, because a moment later he was grilling Mayday with a dozen questions a minute.

“We’ve changed. Catch you guys later!” The guitarist exclaimed with false cheer as she kept walking, clearly attempting to squirrel away.

“Hey, hold on now! This opens up to so many questions! Are you guys retiring? Are you buddies with NSR now? Who was piloting that helicopter?”

Zuke cast the reporter an incredulous look. _Dude, just back off, we clearly need a moment._ It was missed, as the man’s attention was firmly on questioning Mayday, and becoming a musical revolutionary had _not_ fixed Zuke’s camera anxiety, who would've thought. Which meant his poor bandmate was on her own.

“We’ll get back to you on that. Thanks again!” Mayday tried again, this time with a bit more success as the reporter gauged she might really not feel like talking right now.

“You think I’m just going to let you take off like that?”

...Or maybe not.

They both turned, as the imposing figure of No Straight Roads’s CEO stepped forth towards Mayday, hands clasped behind her back. They may no longer be at each other’s throats, courtesy of Kliff’s birdbrained stunt, but Zuke was not sure he would ever find her not intimidating.

_Hmm… there is something different about her too. Maybe it’s her expression isn’t twisted in anger at us for once, or maybe it’s-_

“Oh, hi Tatiana.” Mayday greeted tentatively, eyeing her flaming hairdo. “...Dig the new look.”

_...Right._

There was a beat of silence.

“You could have taken the city for yourself, but instead you chose to save my enterprise. You have my deepest gratitude.”

Tatiana placed a large hand to her chest, lightly bent forward in a thankful bow. And Zuke released a relieved breath he did not know he was holding.

 _..But it’s precisely the fact that we could’ve... would’ve_ _taken the city for ourselves if it weren’t for that wakeup call that’s the problem, isn’t it?_

He jerked, hearing a metallic scrape behind him. The Grand Qwasa seemed to be still struggling with the surplus energy from the showstopper. Truth be told he found it mildly worrying, but nobody else seemed too concerned, so he dismissed it. Maybe someone should turn all the city lights on at once to bring it back to normal levels or something? _I’m not sure, I’m not an electrician._

“Oh, it was nothing.”

Mayday sighed.

“Couldn’t have done it without your help. Anyways… we better make a move first.”

“Mayday.”

Tatiana’s voice was softer than Zuke had ever heard it be.

“Everyone is here to celebrate you and Zuke. Don’t you think it’s a little rude for you to simply… leave?”

That seemed to do the trick. Mayday stopped, looking meekly to her idol - turned enemy - turned… ally?  
Tatiana’s large hand, easily dwarfing his friend’s entire torso, rested reassuringly at May’s back.

“I’ve done these things a million times. Give the people a few words of encouragement.”

He smiled to himself as the guitarist allowed herself to be led to the crowd by Tatiana, with only a bit of hesitation. She settled before the audience, looking around, looking at Tatiana, looking at the people -

He felt a large hand push at his shoulder too. _Oh, right_. Zuke followed a little behind Mayday, feeling just a teeny tiny tad out of sorts about facing a crowd. He might not be good at public speaking, but he could be moral support.

He also was a teeny tiny tad out of sorts regarding the fact that May and him just received validation from _Kul Fyra_. Sure, he may not be a fanboy in the same manner that Mayday was, but he was still a rocker, and he would be a fool not to recognize what her appreciation meant.  
It didn't happen as often these days, but sometimes Zuke still sank back to his childhood habits where acknowledgement of his efforts by those he looked up to tended to regress him to the mentality of a stray puppy, trying his best to earn their appreciation. The fallout with Nadia and his older brother had mostly killed the dire need for other people's approval, but the reveal of Tatiana's identity now put her dangerously close to triggering the 'good boy' line.

Mayday took a deep breath.

“Sorry, guys. I’ve made a mistake. I may not like EDM… and that’s okay.”

She stepped back. There was no cheering, but there neither was booing. It was a thoughtful silence, as both their fans and NSR’s appeared to consider each other, to Zuke's relief.  
The guitarist looked down and to her side, meekly trying to look at his face without being too obvious about it. Her distress made his heart ache. Mayday was boisterous energy, blazing and electric in everything she did. To see her almost timidly trying to hide, like this, just felt wrong.

“I’m glad you brought that up.” Tatiana mentioned, placing a large hand on her shoulder before taking charge and addressing the crowd. Thus were Mayday and him left to mostly their own devices, the CEO speaking with an ability to deal with public expectations that both of them lacked.  
  


“I too am not free from my own wrongdoings, and I take full responsibility for my actions. Having said that, I intend to fix this misstep, right here, right now. I have discussed with my artists, and we have agreed. Vinyl City deserves better than this...”

**_Scrape._  
  
**

The other NSR artists had arrived behind Tatiana at some point, but Zuke had tuned out the speech. His attention was instead on the brightly glowing device in the middle of the plaza, which was still malfunctioning in increasingly more alarming stretches. 

_Okay. This is definitely not normal. Or good.  
  
_

“Earth to Zuke? You here? Heeello?” 

He snapped out of his thoughts and shook his head. May was a step away, clearly torn between listening to Tatiana’s promise, and concern over Zuke’s discomfort. Her eyes also trailed towards the Grand Qwasa.

Looked like he wasn't the only one concerned by the Qwasa’s metallic screeches.

Zuke took a moment before he nodded at it, walking closer to Mayday and whispering.

“I don’t like how the Qwasa is sounding, May. Or… looking. I don’t think Tatiana is realizing it, but maybe we should ask her to address the public later. Just in case?”

Mayday nodded slowly and pursed her lips.  
  


**_“We shall celebrate equality for everyone! Equality and fairness for all!”_ **

They both jumped slightly as the CEO turned to them. Or… perhaps it was just him. Had he missed all of her speech like that?  
The big fish in chief of NSR smiled with uncharacteristic kindness at them, making him just the slightlest bit more embarrased. _Let her not notice I did not catch any of that...  
  
_

“And as a first step, I am pleased to personally offer you two a position in the new NSR party. It would mean a great deal to us, if you could join our cause. What say you?”  
  


Mayday gasped softly next to him. He almost did, too. The public shouted encouraging chants, both EDM and Rock fans alike, in response to Tatiana’s open hand.

The Qwasa was momentarily forgotten. This was… everything they’d ever wanted! The fans, fame, resources, being able to work with the organization to stop the blackouts once and for all! Allowing genres outside Electronic Dance Music into Vinyl City!

And yet…

_And yet._

Guilt bit at the pit of his stomach. He had no doubt May felt similarly.

“I… um…”

Mayday turned to him. Her gaze met his. He knew what she was thinking, and made his own assent.  
She slowly smiled back.

“We-”

**“Should leave immediately.”**

****May flinched. The crowd fell silent. The CEO of NSR whipped around like a viper as DJ Subatomic Supernova stepped over to her side. It was hard to tell with his featureless sphere of a face, but despite the flippant interruption, he looked genuinely tense.  
Was he using Tatiana like a shield?

“DJ! _-What-_ is the meaning of this? This is not the time for a temper tantrum.” 

Well, now he also looked peeved.

**“I mean what I say. You all need to leave immediately. In fact, -I- also need to leave immediately. The public must be evacuated. Everyone in this plaza has to GO.”**

“What-”

“I...! Think the DJ is right. We gotta go.”

Everyone turned to Mayday. She grimaced at the sudden attention ( _Zuke would recoil, too_ ). Tatiana, for her part, seemed confused and mildly betrayed.

Zuke decided to speak up.

“We were talking about how we’ve been hearing strange noises from the Grand Qwasa since we did our showstopper. And it’s… not really stopping. I don’t think it’s safe to linger.”

May chipped in.  
“Besides! We were gonna say we can’t accept anyways, so it’s okay if he cut me off, heheheh…”

“Mayday…” Tatiana started.  
  


**“You’re damn right it’s not safe to linger!”**

****DJ Supernova growled with increasing agitation, much to the confusion of the other artists - save perhaps, Neon J, who seemed increasingly concerned. _Probably as the only one other artist that has a knowledge of engineering?  
_The orb-headed musician continued, gesticulating wildly towards the Qwasa with his massive hands. Zuke wasn't even sure what he was supposed to be indicating anymore.

 **“The Grand Qwasa is unstable. It was not made to go over capacity. We did not think it was** **_-possible-_ ** **for it to go over capacity.”**

It appeared to be enough for Tatiana. The CEO trusted her artist's judgement, specially when he seemed so urgent about it. That was something Zuke could appreciate.  
She whipped around and heaved a low breath, addressing the crowd.  
“It would appear we’ve got some unforeseen circumstances. Everybody go home! And stay safe! Elites, make sure the crowd evacuates safely before you step off, will you?“  
  


She was answered by a chorus of affirmatives. Sayu darted off first followed by Yinu, the virtual mermaid helpfully dashing into the crowd and pointing out exits to the people who slowly left the plaza at various walking speeds. Some began dashing out in fear of the groaning metal structure, others moved reluctantly and dragged their feet. Not often you get to see NSR’s superstars and two musical rebels hanging out under a rain of confetti, he supposed.

 **_Scrape. Scrape.  
_ ** ****

“Hey, hey, what about a press conference? Any public statements with Bunk Bed Junction’s status? Please!”

Zuke froze. He’d forgotten about the news reporter.

“Uhhh… I guess maybe… later? We're a bit busy...”

"Aha, yes! What do you say about an exclusive interview then? Could we film a tour of B2J's dreaded secret lair?"

_Oh brother, why me._

He opened his mouth blankly like a dying fish to the mic shoved towards his face before the reporter’s wrist was snatched by Eve, who promptly began to drag away the protesting man with an irritable look on her face. Before she pulled him out of earshot, though, she looked back at Zuke, briefly.  
And nodded.

After a moment, he nodded back.

They clearly weren’t done talking things over, but he was glad she was willing to offer an olive branch. It was a start.  
And getting out of an interview on television he wasn’t sure how to politely decline _suit him perfectly._  
  
“What do you mean you did not think it was _-possible-_?” Tatiana snapped behind him, closer to the Qwasa. 

The large form of the DJ was crouching, apparently trying to examine the stuttering structure from a vaguely respectful distance, right along Tatiana with Mayday behind her.  
  
**“There’s a rather sizable difference in energy between getting one artist to perform several times and getting a whole city’s worth to perform simultaneously. Even then, it should have been still within the Grand Qwasa’s parameters to handle... As it turns out, getting artists of different genres to play in harmony, rather than trying to drown each other’s music, might potentially boost the energy output by several orders of magnitude. If my hypothesis is correct… Congratulations, Bunk Bed Junction! You Plutonians may have single handedly found the solution to our energy crisis. It is simply unfortunate that you may have found this solution by making our Grand Qwasa go kaboom.”**

There was a brief silence.

**_Scrape. Scrape. Shriek._ **

“Make the Grand Qwasa go WHAT?!?!?!!” Mayday screeched.

Tatiana put a heavy hand on the guitarist, causing her to pipe down. There was a low, urgent exhaustion to the CEO’s voice. 

“How do we fix it?”

 **“How do you fix the inevitable explosion of a red giant, the internal pressure of its core losing the fight against gravity and bursting as it crumbles against itself?”** Supernova offered a bitter sounding laugh. **“I jest. If we can ‘drain the battery’, so to say, a controlled discharge just strong enough to bring it to acceptable levels, then we might just get out of this with an intact Qwasa. And plaza. And life. Assuming we do not bungle the discharge itself.”** The orb-headed man stood up.

“Any, uh, way we can help with this one?” Zuke attempted, disliking the sense of helplessness he felt. And frustration… mostly frustration. Potentially losing the Qwasa felt less terrifying than losing the NSR tower and the hundreds of lives a satellite crash would cost the city, but it would cause a bad blackout, and he just really wanted this series of unfortunate events to finally stop. So May and him could talk, rest, and frankly just stop worrying for a moment.  
The DJ paused to look at him.

**“If someone would be so valiant as to snatch the generator’s cabling from within the Grand Qwasas’s podium itself…”**

Silence again.

“I’ll do it.” Mayday decided rather than offered.

_Zuke did not like that._

“May,” He started, only to find himself accidentally talking over the CEO, “Mayday.”  
The guitarist waved off their concerns.

“...Truth be told, I kind of regret dropping my guitar now,” She twiddled her fingers, looking back towards the Qwasa itself as she bit her lower lip. Tatiana frowned slightly, opening her mouth as her hand wrapped around the neck of her own flaming guitar, but Mayday turned around and trotted over to the Qwasa before the former rockstar could say anything. “Be right back!”

“...Very well.” Tatiana finished lamely as she put her guitar back, and Zuke would’ve laughed if his nerves weren’t so frayed.

_Yep, that is the Mayday experience right there._

**_Shriek. Scrape. Shriek._ **

May hopped over the edge of the platform, ducking out of sight as Zuke was left to tersely wait along with NSR’s leader and an egotistic DJ. At some point the manager of 1010 tried to walk back to them only to be emphatically chased away by Supernova. This turned to Supernova also attempting to direct them out of the (presumed) blast radius. Tatiana obliged, but Zuke’s only response was a shake of his head and a look in the direction of the Qwasa.

He wasn't abandoning his bandmate.

 **“Suit yourself.”** The DJ answered, not particularly invested.

“HEY GUYS!” Mayday hollered from wherever the heck she was. “IS THE THING YOU NEED A BIG OLD ROPEY BLACK CABLE CONNECTED TO A THING THAT’S HIDDEN UNDER THE CONCRETE?”

**“...Yes. That is the backup connector.”**

“Sweet.” Mayday grinned as she perched on the platform’s railing. Her iconic yet destroyed pink guitar was slung over her torso once again, and under an arm she carried the head of a large cable that was thicker than her own legs. She looked as smug as a cat as she hopped down and attempted to drag the heavy thing back. 

Much like Zuke, May tended to deal with emotional turmoil by distracting herself with specific tasks she could complete in the moment. It worked, but Zuke wished it wasn’t volunteering into the maw of danger that she’d chosen for this purpose. He sighed and wandered over to help Mayday with the heavy thing.

_**Scrape- CRACK** _

A deafening noise pulled him from his own thoughts and stopped his steps.  
  


Mayday paled.  
  


“Uh.”

**_Scrape Scrape shRIEK CRUMBLE SNAP_ **

One of the incomplete rings of the Grand Qwasa came loose, rolling along the ground with a loud screech. It rolled up the platform’s railing, cracked in two, then the individual halves crashed down with a ringing, painful clamor of shrieking metal.

“Uh oh.” Mayday managed once she recovered from the noise.  
  


_All hell came loose._

“Go. Go!” Supernova bellowed, harshly yanking Zuke back before turning tail.  
The drummer stumbled, arms flying wildly before he regained his balance and began running as well.  
  


**_“LEAVE!”_ **Tatiana roared from a distance. Zuke heard indistinct screaming, likely from stubborn folks who had insisted on staying around until their life was in danger. “EVERYBODY LEAVE, **_NOW!_ **”

“But what about the Qwasa?!” Mayday shouted. Was she really still trying to drag the cables back?

 **“It is too dangerous and too late.”** Was the DJ’s answer. **“Abandon it and just** **_run_ ** **.”**

“Abandon ship!” 1010’s manager helpfully added. “Abandon ship!”  
  


There was a second painful crash as another of the floating rings came loose. It barely missed Mayday as it rolled off the stage and by her side.  
  


That _(finally)_ made her drop the cables.

“Nope. Nope. Nope, nope, nope _nope_!”

The Grand Qwasa swirled and vibrated wildly with its remaining rings, its center focus cracking. Thankfully, mostly everyone had left the Festival Plaza by the time the musical generator began coming undone, hidden around or inside buildings in what was _guesstimated_ a safe distance. By this point, the only one not out of the plaza yet was Mayday.  
And by a few feet, Zuke himself.

_Almost out!_

The massive device broke down further with a thunder-like crack. It was not the crack that stopped his fleeing steps, however. It was Mayday’s terrified, pained wail.

He looked back. The lights in the whole district were flickering from off to extreme brightness and back in a blinding display. Beyond May, the deepening cracks of the Qwasa’s core breathing lightning and blue flames like a strange fiery spirit.

Zuke's breath stilled as he took a good look at his bandmate.  
During his mad dash out, one of the licking flashes of power had apparently struck Mayday. She was limping, trying to navigate the burning asphalt with a charred leg.  
  


He had the horrible realization she was not going to make it.

_  
“I’m not abandoning my bandmate.”_

...Not on her own.  
  


The decision was made in less of a split second.

“ZUKE!” That was Nadia. He could hear some of the other artist’s protests in the background, but he couldn’t and did not want to identify them. “DON’T YOU DARE!”   
He didn’t listen.

All the lights were off but for the gleam of the expanding fire, and May was on the ground, knees covered in asphalt burns and trying to push herself upright. Even wounded and in a hopeless situation, she was _still_ fighting on. She kept fighting while alone and homeless, she kept fighting when a music empire told her no, she kept fighting when hellfire was about to rain. _Never give up, never surrender._ It was one of the many traits of hers he admired.

Dumbly, among the fires, he couldn’t think of a faster way to announce his presence to his best friend than whip out his sticks and beat his magic drum exactly once. It worked, but he also could’ve just shouted really loudly over the din. It was something for him to reconsider his intelligence over drinks later.  
_If there was a later._

Wide magenta eyes looked up at him with a wild mix of emotions. Fear, relief, gratitude, confusion. Then realization and terror. He held his hand down to her and she took it. 

Behind them, the Grand Qwasa boomed a final time.  
  


“Zuke…?”  
  


He smiled.  
  


Before he gripped her arm with both hands and, with adrenaline surging through his veins in a way that his college self only wished he had exploited, he lifted her with a spin and _threw her out of the Plaza like a ragdoll_.

If anything, he was happy that his last _(probable)_ act on Earth was him looking _incredibly cool._

Electrical flames slammed into his back, drawing a choked breath out of him. The pain hit him just as he also hit the ground. Fire burned down his clothes, his hair, his muscles and fat with an efficiency no normal fire should have - _he should know, he has been set on fire before_ \- and quickly reduced him to nothing. He screamed in agony, his lungs filling with ashes and debris.

He heard Mayday calling his name. His pain-drunk mind stumbled, unable to register the reason why that may be the case. Had he not thrown her far enough?

He feebly reached up through the raw qwasa energy. His hand, what he saw of it, was burning down to charred bones wrapped in sinew that fell down with the rest of his arm. Distantly, he heard May, and Nadia’s, screams growing fainter.  
He didn’t mind the growing silence, however. Noise made it hard to rest and he was becoming very tired.

Just very tired.

Satisfied and exhausted, Zuke’s mind faded to electric blue, then to black. 


	2. Intro, part 2 - Aka Siri, search ‘how to pep up a kid with crippling depression’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up cause this is an angsty one. This probably one of the saddest chapters in all of the story to come, but on the positive side things do start looking up after this.  
> Some references to Eve lashing out thru the chapter. She’s got good reason, so I hope it didn't come across as character-bashy. She's definitely got some pain of her own to sort thru in this fic.  
> Tatiana just mentally refers to everyone under 30 as a ‘kid’ much to everyone’s frustration.

“No, no, this will not _suffice_ . I am accepting no excuses. Have you double checked the repairs? Triple-checked the output? It’s been barely two weeks since catastrophic failure and **_you_ ** are already attempting to cut corners and skimp on safety. And all that you have to say for yourself is _‘it makes no sense to keep delaying it’_.”

“But miss Tatiana,” Replied the meek voice of the engineer at the other end of the line, “All the tests we’ve done have proved the Qwasa’s repairs to be safe. We held a public safety test of the power intake limiters using mixed indie bands and 1010’s aid. We even let Mr. Supernova peruse the repairs as requested.” Despite the man’s timid demeanor, his voice still took on an odd tone when he mentioned DJ Subatomic Supernova. Clearly the engineer had no understanding of the DJ’s background and knowledge.

Tatiana pinched the bridge of her nose. “And the result?”

“He deems it safe enough with the larger energy storage, ma’am. All that is left to do is to connect the machine back to the power grid.”

She sighed deeply, taking a few minutes to rein in her patience. _Be logical here, Tatiana._

“...Very well. Proceed with the connection as scheduled this afternoon. But I will be personally overseeing it, and should the Qwasa fail _I will hold you accountable._ ”

“...Understood, ma’am.”  
  


She hung up the phone.

Tatiana let go of her nose and turned to rubbing her temples, releasing a mildly frustrated exhale as she regained her wit. Truth be told, she knew there was probably nothing wrong with the repaired Grand Qwasa. It was her own neuroses getting in the way; the machine had functioned stellarly ever since its construction at least a dozen years ago as purely experimental technology, with nary an accident or record of malfunctioning despite being out in the open and unwatched. The only reason it exploded in the first place was simply because they used it to do something that it was not designed to do, and even then it had contained the power remarkably well despite it bursting at the seams. It certainly would’ve lasted long enough for everybody to have left the area had they noticed its state earlier.

And yet…

It felt wrong to simply… keep using it. Even if it was the logical thing to do. Even if Vinyl City couldn’t keep relying on backup and district-only generators forever, and replacing it would be far too costly.

Tatiana made a disgruntled noise.

_‘It’s too early for this junk.’_

She had considered sending someone to fetch her breakfast while she got some paperwork done, but frankly she doubted her patience to ponder finances and the integration of indie artists into NSR-sanctioned venues given her current mood. Instead she headed back out of her office down the hall.

More specifically to the floor of the tower she called her apartment.  
  


She needed to retrieve a few things before she ventured out of the tower for a meal. Put down the papers, pick up her wallet and a jacket. Walking around would give her some well deserved time to clear her head.   
  


She had just closed the door to her home behind her when something cold and hard bumped against her ankles.

 _“What-”_ Tatiana started.

“Gwah,” Said Ellie.

The CEO stared down at the bright blue alligator. It stared back with wide, pleading bright eyes, far too intelligent (and much to Tatiana’s chagrin, _cute_ ) for what is purportedly a dangerous reptilian predator.

It tilted its head. And opened its teeth-filled mouth.

Tatiana sighed, again.

“Fine, fine. Just, stop looking at me like that.” She mumbled as she moved to the kitchen, rummaging around her fridge before selecting a chunky beef steak she was supposed to make herself for dinner and sticking it on a platter. Though she might've otherwise felt foolish for talking to a pet as if it were a person, _cat-aunt tendencies nonwithstanding,_ the sight of the coldblooded beast piloting an **_helicopter_** (?!?) made her choose to err on the side of Ellie's intelligence.   
She lowered the platter to the floor in front of the reptile.

“Be careful. It’s cold.”

Of course, Ellie didn’t really seem to care about the temperature of meat, and snatched up her prize with her jaws before bounding out of the kitchen. The noise she made was far more like that of a squeaky toy than any sort of crocodilian.  
  


She was not sure what in the world Bunk Bed Junction was _(had been)_ thinking when they chose to keep an _alligator_ of all things around as a _housepet_ , but she couldn’t deny that the little beast was well-behaved.

Go figure that one of the outcomes of the music revolution might be getting used to treating a toothy, disturbingly intelligent reptile as if it were a regular cat.

She picked the platter from the floor and stepped out of the kitchen. Now where she’d put her wallet…? She had... genuinely forgotten. Her memory was really out there these days. Making peace with her past as Kul Fyra and with rock as a genre had done wonders for her mental health, but the slight hint of chaos mingling with her Order, brought by old forgotten passion, did mean that she felt more scatterbrained than usual. 

Or perhaps... she just had too much to think about. Both in the sense of dissolving her old preconceived notions, and processing the events that occurred since the last audition. More had happened in the span of roughly a month than had happened to her in years.

It did take a toll on one’s mind to say the least.  
  


  
As she turned the corner, she noticed Ellie’s blue tail dragging as the reptile bounded into the living room. _Huh. Very strange_. She had noticed the alligator liked to hop her way back to her caretaker after she got her morning snack rather than freeroam, uncomfortable exploring Tatiana’s apartment by herself. Tatiana frowned, her searching steps following the animal.

_Ah._

Well, that would be why.

Mayday was sitting on the couch by the coffee table, facing the window. Her braids and ponytails looked disheveled, but that happened to be the rule rather than the exception ever since the incident. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, which Ellie nudged up before burrowing inside. Tatiana could see her bandage-wrapped leg poking out, and when the girl absently pulled the blanket to stroke the alligator’s side, she could also see the sticks being held close to May's chest.

Zuke’s drumsticks, that is.  
  


Tatiana felt her gaze soften as she headed for the table.

“Mayday. You’re up early.”

“Huh?” The rocker girl looked up abruptly, apparently startled out of her thoughts before recognizing her and deflating a bit. “Oh. Hey, Tatiana. I… guess I couldn’t sleep.”

Tatiana walked up to the rocker’s side, who had returned her attention to the window. The girl shifted to sit up slightly straighter at her approach. “I see. Healing is a long process, though if you do have persistent problems sleeping, do let me know.”   
  


She picked up her jacket from the couch where she’d abandoned it yesterday without noticing, shuffling her large shoulders to slide it on. The jacket itself was black leather, with sewn on orange flame designs along the back. It looked far more reminiscent of Kul Fyra’s fashion sense than orderly Tatiana’s, which… was an entirely correct assumption. The piece of outerwear had been sitting at the bottom of her closet since NSR’s founding, and she would never bring it to anything remotely businesslike, reignited love of rock or not. But it was still comfortable to wear when off-duty, and doing so felt like meeting an old friend.  
  


“I am going to head outside for breakfast. What would you like me to bring you?” 

“Uh, thanks but... I’m not hungry! Or thirsty, I mean… I don't really... want anything. But have a good breakfast!” Mayday’s voice had taken on that falsely cheerful _‘I’m-not-ok-but-I-don’t-wanna-be-a-drag’_ voicetone that Tatiana had gotten acquainted with since the satellite’s destruction. The rocker looked up at her with a teeny smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

She stopped smiling when she noticed Tatiana’s unimpressed face.

“Please, I insist.” The CEO stated firmly, tone mildly acerbic. Not an offering, an order. Her stern tone made May wilt, though, so Tatiana caught her tongue and dialed back a bit. “Mayday. You need to eat. You cannot subsist on music and regret alone. Do this for me at least. If you do not give me an actual answer, I will choose for you, and I will see to it that you eat what I brought no matter whether you like it or not. Understand?”

The rocker hestitated and grumbled before she finally gave up.

“...Okay. If I have to… teh tarik and roti is fine.” She answered with a sigh, only to perk up a moment later as if realizing something. “...And only if you let me come with.”

Tatiana blinked in surprise.

“...If you’re certain you can handle the walk, I see no issues with this.” 

That she had gotten May to accept a meal with relatively little struggle was an achievement in and of itself. What she had not expected was the girl to actually want to get out of the tower, considering the past few days had consisted of her mostly hiding out in the guest room. 

Her eyes trailed over to May’s bandaged leg, then to the broken pink guitar that May insisted on using as a crutch instead of the actual thing. 

“The food stalls are a considerable distance from the tower, so this won’t be anything like hobbling around from room to room.”

Mayday offered that sad ever-present smile as she stroked Ellie’s side and untangled herself from the blanket.

“Yeah, yeah I know. I should be fine though! I think... I mean, the bruises aren’t hurting a lot anymore. And I think if I keep spending all day locked up I am really gonna begin going coocoo.” The rocker made a small grunt as she nudged the alligator aside and grabbed her broken guitar, pushing herself to stand up.   
  


Tatiana nodded absently, patting her jacket for her wallet before heading for the door.

“Then go get ready, get yourself cleaned up. I’ll be waiting at the elevator.”

“Got it!” The rocker squirreled away, hopping away with the aid of her guitar like a hyperactive kangaroo as she headed for the bathroom. However, a second after she entered it, she popped her head back out to call Tatiana.

“Actually, I feel bad asking this but uuuh… Can I borrow? Your guitar? For a little while, while we’re out and about? ...Pleeeeeease? I'll be gentle!”  
  


_...What?_

___  
  


That was how ten minutes later they found themselves walking down the bridge away from NSR tower in silence. They were only accompanied by the sound of their steps, the thud of May’s guitar used as a crutch, and the chirping of seagulls.

Tatiana was not much for idle talking, never was. When she opened her mouth it was generally with a purpose firm in her mind. This trait of hers had never changed, even if the circumstances and she herself had. She was perfectly content with silence if there was nothing of use or interest to talk about, and as a rule, she was quite peeved when this preference was not respected.

So then why did Mayday’s silence bother her so much?

Her own _(Kul Fyra’s)_ guitar was slung over a shoulder. She could have made May carry it, as she was the one interested in performing in the street ( _for whatever reason_ ), but with one arm used to wield her guitar-crutch and the other insistently keeping Zuke’s drumsticks close to her, Tatiana decided maybe it was best she not add to the load-bearing.

It didn’t make the situation any less uncomfortable, however. With the fiery jacket and the flaming guitar and her hair back to the status of fire hazard, Tatiana was distressingly aware that she was the spitting image of her former persona.

_(Though older. Wearier. Carrying a mountain of regrets.)  
  
_

_Tatiana Qwartz, CEO of NSR and empress of EDM, walking down the streets, looking like she was freshly dragged out of musical retirement by the only remaining member of Bunk Bed Junction. Who was now sheltering at her tower._

If Kliff could see this, he would be laughing so hard he’d be choking on his own broken nose.

Thankfully she didn’t have to fear too much for her self respect. It was quite early in the day and there were few people on the streets. Not yet the morning rush, so they could afford to breathe. A few people in the more populated roads seemed to freeze and gawk at them when they recognized the unusual pair, but Tatiana paid them no mind, other than watching Mayday awkwardly wave hello to a few of the more blatant onlookers. For the most part, everyone seemed too busy or too sleepy to ask questions.  
  


Her morning routine had been greatly derailed, but Tatiana would take this as a victory. It had not been long ago - really, just a few days - that the guitarist simply refused to engage anybody. Or emote. Or drink, or eat. As if starving herself might somehow improve matters; burn off her guilt, reverse time. The businesswoman had no idea what was going on in that blonde head of hers. 

Though to be fair to the girl, she was doing much, much better than she was doing that first week.

___

_The fire in the middle of the Festival Plaza roared, its strength diminishing like the start of a swan song. Even then, it was still deafening._

_She wrapped her hand around the waist of the tiny knucklehead that had been thrown in their direction, trying to pull her over the fence. The rocker girl had looked disoriented for a while upon impact, and Tatiana was certain that the toss had left quite a bruise of its own, but once Mayday had gathered her wit she’d immediately descended into hysterics and kept fighting to run back into danger, like a rabid kitten with a broken leg._

_The distant figure near the Qwasa had long since stopped struggling and been swallowed by the fires. However, now that the flames were fading, there was still no hint of the blue haired kid._

_Foolish boy! Foolish, foolish boy! What had he been thinking?! Straight into the flames with him, as if it wouldn’t hurt?! As if the explosion would not obliterate even herself, fire and magma given life?! No. No, he knew, he knew full well. Tatiana had known the kid was loyal, she just had not known to which extent._

_She did now._

**_“ZUKE! ZUUUUKEEEEEE!!”_ ** _Despite having been screaming her lungs and life out for nearly half a minute, Mayday did not appear to give any signs of running out of steam in her desperate screaming for her bandmate. At some point, Supernova attempted to help with restraining the frantic guitarist, but she just bit his hand like a feral animal._

_Behind Tatiana, Eve was crying.  
  
It was this event more than anything that began cracking the CEO’s heart. _

_Nadia was a strong woman, but she was also logical. She had no delusions as to what they would find once the fires were gone. Tatiana had not known the exact nature of her and Zuke’s relationship until Bunk Bed Junction made it to Eve’s concert, at which point she wished she'd intervened earlier. Their time together may have long passed, and they may have approached closure, but it was clear as day that her right hand still harbored feelings for the drummer._

_The halves of the Grand Qwasa crashed apart with a low groan of metal, the flames diminished by now to brief licks simmering away. Tatiana’s arms hurt from trying to restrain the chaotic guitarist and after a moment’s pause she let go, hissing softly as she shook her hand._

_Mayday crashed against the ground, first. The cry of pain she released made Tatiana immediately regret not letting go a bit more gently. It didn’t matter for long. First crawling then pushing herself up using her guitar, the rocker zoomed off into the inner plaza at an alarming speed considering her heavy injuries._

_Tatiana watched this. Then, after an exhale, steeled her resolve and jumped over the railing herself._

_The reactions from the artists behind herself were several. Eve’s stifled sobs worsening, a muttered conversation between Neon J and Supernova, Sayu quietly greeting Mrs. Natura. Yinu had become almost entirely silent, likely because she had realized earlier what she would likely see if she stayed, and very apologetically asked if Mom could take her now. That child had seen enough death as it was._

_“She got him killed. That_ **_pedestrian_ ** _, good for nothing_ **_creature_ ** _got_ him _killed.”_

_Tatiana tried to ignore Eve’s progressively angrier mutterings as she made her way through the dying fires, making a mental note to talk to the diva as soon as she got the chance. The ground was charred concrete and melted asphalt, benches and bushes and large signs either burning or entirely missing._

_No sign of drummer kid._

_Or a body._

_She took a moment to pause and recollect, scan her surroundings more thoroughly. That can’t be right._

_Perhaps he managed to hide somewhere right before the blast?_

_What she did see, however, was Mayday kneeling on the ground._

_“Mayday.” The CEO called out, mildly perplexed as she walked over to the rebellious performer. It was strange to see her staying still when earlier she had been so electric about getting back to her bandmate._

_Unless…  
  
_

_“Mayday?” She tried again, a bit gentler. No response from the guitarist._

_Tatiana hazarded a look over the girl’s shoulder. There, on the scorched ground, were a couple of scorched, mildly damaged NSR brand drumsticks._

_She recognized them. The bruises they had caused her earlier in the day still stung._

_Mayday stared at them, unblinking. Blank._

_Shut down._

_Tatiana took a deep breath. The noise came out more shaken than she tolerated out of herself, and she cleared her throat to bury it._

_She_ had _known the kid was loyal._

_(I see.)_

_(I understand, Zuke.)_

_(...I hope you didn’t regret your decision, you troublemaker.)_

_The moment her hand touched the back of the kneeling guitarist, Mayday’s eyes welled._

__

___

Tatiana shook her head, trying to clear her mind from the unexpected trip down memory lane.

They had found a food stall not long afterwards, that was already open. In the end, they both ordered the same thing, teh tarik and roti canai, merely for sake of expediency on Tatiana’s part. 

They sat together, eating in awkward silence.

Tatiana wondered if she should say something. She had expected Mayday to be a chatterbox, when she took her under her wing. Given what little she had seen ( _and known_ ) of the guitarist during the music revolution, she had been happy to chat with literally anybody who she encountered around town, sometimes even including NSR’s own artists and Tatiana herself whenever she was not busy taunting. She was clearly not Neon J levels of talkative, but she also was not a person of few words.  
Definitely not a person of _quiet_ words at that.

But now, getting the girl to say anything other than hellos, apologies or assurances that She Was Fine, had turned more painful than pulling teeth.  
  


She watched Mayday morosely eat her food, gaze kept low as she seemed to toy with the roti and roll it around like she was a kid sulking about vegetables.

Tatiana sighed, closing her eyes to hide her frustration. “Mayday, please.”

“What? I’m eating!” May took a big bite out of her food and washed it down with a big gulp of teh tarik. She made a crooked grin afterwards.

Tatiana pinched her nose.

It was like this kid had never ever learned any sense of decorum. Not on the street, not as a guest, certainly not as a musician.

The CEO took a moment to examine that thought. Although brought about by frustration, ...perhaps she might genuinely be onto something. Perhaps nobody had taught her.

Shortly after the Qwasa’s failure, Tatiana came to understand exactly how much B2J had been relying on each other.

There was _nobody_ out there looking out for Mayday. Nobody. At all.  
  


Sure, the rocker had plenty of friends and acquaintances, some old, some made during their revolution - _Tatiana had gotten a few names, like some DJ Zam, a certain Gigi, somebody named ‘Aunty’...?_ \- and Bunk Bed Junction had earned plenty of legitimate fans along those who just followed the fad thorough the way. 

But, they were not close friendships. Though some of these people probably legitimately cared for May, there was nobody out there for her with the kind of bond that Tatiana would feel comfortable putting a distraught artist in the care of.

No parents. No siblings. No grandparents or extended family. No mentors or close friendships, other than the deceased, of course. It was as if Mayday had popped out of the void itself.

Was she an orphan? Disowned? Did she run away? Tatiana had wondered, but with May's sanity hanging by a thread at the time, she had no time to question.  
  


It had, however, left Tatiana with a tough decision to make. 

She could… gently uninvolve herself and leave the grieving guitarist to hopefully figure herself out after she was out of the hospital, considering that Tatiana was not… great at caring _(a part of her that died with the Goolings)_ and it was B2J’s meddling that landed them all in their current predicament.

Or… she could take Mayday under her wing until the girl got back into her groove. Because those two brave, chaotic nitwits had fought to redeem themselves, had risked their life _(twice!)_ to make things right, and in Zuke’s case paid the ultimate price for it.  
Not to mention that the reason that they had started their impulsive music revolution was due to an admittedly just as impulsive **_ban_ ** on an entire genre of music based only on _Tatiana’s own personal experience._ Coupled with a completely valid criticism that her bias was stifling Vinyl City, and a very understandable confusion about prioritizing her artists during blackouts, _and had she not asked them to rock out on the Grand Qwasa, had she listened and verified earlier that it was safe to finally talk and celebrate-_

Tatiana identified her derailing train of thought and put it to a stop. She took a deep breath and shook her head. 

No. She was overreaching her effect on all of this.

_It isn’t your fault, remember. It is Kliff’s, and circumstance. Sometimes horrible things occur. Beating yourself over it won’t improve matters, nor make you feel better in the long run. Sometimes all you can do is remember and be glad that you tried._

She remembered telling Mayday that, those early days the kid refused to so much as eat or drink and alternated between loud and distraught sobbing and staring blankly at the hospital wall.

Funny then, that Tatiana herself was struggling with guilt. Such are the effects of remorse and hindsight, she supposed.

“Um… Tatiana? Tati? Are you okay…?”

 **_...Tati?!_ ** ...She made a disgruntled noise, but she decided to let the nickname slide for the moment.

“Yes, my apologies. I got distracted with idle thoughts. Is anything the matter?” She took a sip from her own drink, almost finished with breakfast despite blanking out for a while.

“Ah! Nono, nothing bad. Just wanted to check on you! ‘Cause you looked a little lost for a bit, that’s all. And it's odd to see you... look lost...” Mayday turned her attention to her half eaten meal which she was still barely doing any progress on, fidgeting with her hands. Tatiana arched an eyebrow when the girl frowned and made an exhale.

“...I’m being kinda difficult, am I?”

“Quite.” Tatiana answered bluntly over the frothy tea. Mayday smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck as she looked away.

“...I’m sorry. I’m not meaning to be ungrateful, honest! And I like the food! I used to get this at Aunty’s. It’s just… I feel so bad. And- and maybe Eve had a point, okay? You’re being really nice, but I feel like I don’t deserve any nice, so then I don’t enjoy anything nice ‘cause I don’t deserve it. But then I also feel bad ‘cause you put in the effort and I still can’t enjoy the nice thing…”

Tatiana sighed for the upteenth time that day.

_This again._

Assurances and apologies. Constantly.

“Mayday, we have addressed this before. You don’t _‘not deserve’_ things.” The CEO paused, reconsidering her odd wording. “You are a young, talented guitarist, a charismatic performer, and a fundamentally good person. A little misguided, perhaps... very well, more than a little, true. But I was equally blind in my actions.” She finished her teh tarik, setting the mug on the table before eyeing Mayday’s burned leg.  
“Helping you get back on your feet, literally and figuratively, is the least I can do. If not as thanks for sparing my enterprise, then for my own peace of mind.”  
  


The CEO lowered her gaze to look at the rocker’s starstruck eyes and doofy, fangirlish grin.

Did May actually look flustered for once? Perhaps she overdid it this time.

“Whoa… I... thank you… those are very nice things to tell me and... I still can’t believe my idol is just sitting here and we’re eating like we're good friends! Even though I'm embarrasing myself and - even after everything just - Oooh waow...”

Tatiana looked at the girl who was struggling to form a complete thought, amused. “Are you going on these self doubt circles only because you want more pep talks from Kul Fyra?”  
  


“What-?! Nono no of course not, it’s not like that!”   
  


Tatiana couldn’t help herself. She shouldn’t do it, but she was not thinking at the time.

She reached over to ruffle Mayday’s blonde hair with a large hand like she was one of her little siblings.

“You know I’m only messing with you.”

Tatiana’s smirk froze as she registered what she’d just done. 

_What was she thinking?_ She had good reasons to keep her reservations about the guitarist. Her crusade, while justified, had hurt the city and she doubted the previously opposed artist would appreciate the patronizing treatment.

She was interrupted from her mild panic by Mayday’s giggle.

“Hehe… okay, I mean, you never know! Maybe I’m actually scamming you out of praises. If the best rockstar ever says I’m cool enough times, I will steal her power and evolve into the ultimate guitarist… that’s the rules! The stans say so!”

“Hmm. If that is the case, I suspect you will run out of praises to take with this method rather soon. Have you considered perhaps signing up for street cleanup? Removing the layer of glitter you’ve put on all our city buildings would _definitely_ get me to sing your praises to the high suns.”

"Wha- Street cleanup?! No way! Then I would have to put actual effort into it, that's not how scamming goes! Besides, how am I gonna remove glitter if I can only hop around? Look at my hurt leg! Doesn't it make you feel bad? Look at my sad puppy eyes..."  
  
"If your leg bothers you that much, I am certain we can find a way around it. You know, I bet Neon J would absolutely love having someone to test his cybernetics on. If you don't mind a little chop around the height of the knee-"

"EYheyhey, Okay okay it's not hurt _that_ bad! I think I like my leg better than any replacement metal... _But_ if you give me a cool flying hoverboard to move around with like in a spy movie mayyybe I will consider the glitter thing."  
  
"I don't know. Are you sure? From what I understand you quite enjoy the perfomances of Neon's troops. With this plan you might then become, approximately, hm... one-fifth part of 1010. Specifically, your foot. I'm sure, given your track record, we can slowly approach that fraction of Tenten-ness closer to one-one soon enough."  
  
"What, seriously? Heck yeah I'm sold! Roborock!!"  
  
"Excellent. Let me schedule an appointment for surgery."  
  


Tatiana was interrupted from mock-dialing on her phone by a loud snicker from the girl next to her, all before Mayday burst into a cackling laughter.  
It was a good sound. It was a happy sound. She had not heard those come from May in far too long.  
  


Eventually, the laughter dissipated into small giggles, leaving the guitarist with a still sad, but fairly more genuine, grin.

“Nah… but seriously, thank you, hehe. For, like, everything. I know that it’s all in my head... I think. It’s just… I guess my head is very good at convincing me I’m a terrible person right now. Dopamine machine broke, oops, here comes the self-loathing! I dunno. I don’t actually want to be a sadsack but it just keeps happening. Though... I gotta say getting nice words said about me by my childhood idol is a nice bonus.”  
  


Tatiana smiled, gentle but grim. “I can imagine as much.”

___  
  


She had only intended for a short walk. Just get food for two and head back.

Apparently by _‘short’_ Mayday understood _‘all the way to the Plaza and back with change and some stops along the way’_ , much to Tatiana’s irritation.  
  


May began to flag by some halfway point through Natura, so it wasn’t a matter of her needing much more activity than the CEO to feel tired, either _(though Tatiana suspected this would still be the case once her body stopped using up its energy in healing)_. The girl was beginning to make a rather unfortunate face when she thought she wasn’t looking, teeth gritting and eyes squeezing shut. She had to guess that something among the myriad of bruises she was recovering from was starting to smart from walking, aside from her bandaged, burned leg.

Even then, Mayday refused to head back early, saying she had some unfinished business. With a frankly impressive combination of firm refusal coupled with pouting at her with those starry pink eyes of hers, the rocker managed to cajole her into spending her morning walking her all the way to nearly the other edge of the city.  
  


_‘Ugh. And she is this stubborn even while she is barely functional. I begin to see why that drummer kid seemed to be always two steps behind her.’_

Tatiana had not understood what the deal was with her insistence to get across town until she saw her perk up at the sight of a flower stall. With a quick _“Oop, give me a moment”_ the girl excused herself, hopping over to it before she could say something.

She watched with a raised eyebrow as the guitarist and the merchant spoke animatedly, until Mayday limped her way back with a bouquet held in the same hand she held the drumsticks. White irises.

She began to understand what Mayday really wanted, then.  
  


By the time they arrived at the Festival Plaza, the sun hung high in the sky, and the city life was in full swing. Their presence was beggining to raise more than a few questions to passerbys.

Especially after Tatiana got tired of Mayday’s stubbornness and began carrying the indie musician over the shoulder like a sack of potatoes. For her part, the rocker girl only protested and tried to fight free for about ten minutes before giving up and tolerating the treatment, cheering herself up by gushing to herself about being carried by THE Kul Fyra.

Tatiana struggled not to roll her eyes. This was definitely going to end up in _some_ newsletter.

Now at their target destination, Tatiana reached up and snatched Mayday by the back of her tank top before plopping her down on the ground with as much dignity as she could afford. May made a small hiss and wobbled on her legs like a newborn fawn before she secured her guitar-crutch and reoriented herself.

The Festival Plaza had seen better days, but it was in remarkably good state for what had happened weeks prior. The explosion from the Grand Qwasa had been brutal, but it had been contained, in the sense that it had not spread far. There were plenty of scorch marks and cracks along the ground, but the buildings around it were all intact. A few signs, screens and neons closer to ground zero were in the process of being replaced, some nearby benches were nowhere to be seen and the planters where the bushes and flowers had been just held barren soil, but otherwise the Plaza didn’t look like the scenario for catastrophe it had been.  
  


And of course, the repaired Grand Qwasa, sitting in the middle of it. Surrounded by technicians making last minute tests, it held no shine; its rings sitting lifelessly on the ground.

And close to it, colors.

The shrine of flowers and offerings rested against one of the half burned poles yet to be replaced. It had clearly been moved there very recently, having been sat against the edge of the destroyed Qwasa’s railing until today.

A large painting sat to the side, framed in gold with a glass casing. The abstract image was difficult to understand, but Tatiana could decipher the anguish it depicted by the somber blue colors and the violence of the strokes. Clearly the work of Eve.

The rest of the offerings presented to the dead were not quite as majestic as Eve’s grief-formed artwork, but there was still a surprising amount of love being expressed for the drummer of a formerly no-name indie rock band. Flowers, most of all, but Tatiana also counted folded letters, a Sayu plush with a heart on it, a radio, a blue beanie, an… origami crane? Made from a local restaurant’s menu, for whatever reason… Had someone really left there an entire drum set?

“Tatiana?” Mayday called.

She looked back at the girl who stared back with a stern expression. Mayday wore the same scowl she wore when she had assaulted Tatiana at her tower, and it took the CEO aback, specially in comparison to the far more vulnerable expressions she'd carried since.  
  
“It’s the day… isn’t it? The day that… _that thing_ is turned on again?”  
  


 _So she knew._ That was why May was so insistent that they walk all the way to the plaza today. She might not have known for sure earlier, but the technicians and the moving of the shrine were likely a dead giveaway.

“Yes.”  
  


“...Why? How can you be so calm when reactivating that thing?! It’s dangerous!”  
  


“Mayday. You know that the reason the Grand Qwasa malfunctioned was-”

“It’s so dangerous, and it killed Zuke and _Zuke was already the strongest person I know_ so you know exactly how lethal it is if it managed to put _him_ _of all people_ down!”

“Mayday.”

“And- and! Are we gonna do him dirty like that? I’m not gonna do him the dirty like that! It’s only been a few days and we’re just gonna keep using the thing that killed him like it was nothing-”

**“MAYDAY.”  
  
**

The girl stopped, surprised by her outburst. Tatiana reached up with a hand to put out a lick of flame from her head.

“It has been _two weeks_. Two weeks on backup generators for an entire city in an energy crisis. Perhaps the individual artist’s districts might be able to keep functioning indefinitely, but you know, even better than I do, that Vinyl City is more than what NSR controls. And with Eve also unable to perform, prospects are looking grim.”

Mayday looked aside then whipped back at her, glaring.

“What about indie artists!? The restrictions are gone! They can help!”

“The lifted restrictions are precisely why we need the Grand Qwasa. This spring of music diversity won’t last, if it’s not given a platform.”  
  


“Uuuurgh!” Mayday growled, gritting her teeth but unable to come up with a good argument back. “We can- we can just wait a little longer and build more qwasas!! We don’t need a crappy giant generator- that’s right, it’s really just a giant generator! And I’ll rock out all day _every day_ to power ‘em all if it means-”  
  


_“You and what band will power them, Mayday.”_

That shut the guitarist up instantly.  
  


Mayday’s shoulders dropped as the fight drained out of her. Her expression turned blank, her eyes hazy.

Tatiana… knew she shouldn’t have said that.

A tense silence followed.

“Right. Um…” Mayday started after a shaky exhale and shake of her head. To the surprise of the CEO, she walked over, dropping her broken guitar with care not to accidentally crush either of their feet and then making a grabby gesture at Tatiana’s guitar while she balanced on her healthy foot. “Can I borrow it now…?”

Tatiana unslung her instrument from her shoulders, and offered it for the girl to take.  
  


“If it helps, I do not like this situation either. Reactivating the Qwasa merely happens to be the only currently feasible option to maintain Vinyl City's growth.” She tried to reassure, awkwardly.

“Yeah. Fair.” Mayday mumbled lamely, turning around to shoulder past the crowd that had formed due to their argument ( _and infamous combined presence_ ). She seemed to hesitate for a few moments as she realized that she probably couldn’t get away with using Kul Fyra’s guitar like a crutch, but before Tatiana could reach a hand to help out, May took off hopping like a one-footed rabbit.  
  


The girl made her way to the drummer’s little shrine, arms flailing as she almost overbalanced the landing, before dropping to her knees and rearranging the guitar she carried. Tatiana pushed past the onlookers as Mayday was still fiddling with her posture. A little hiss told the CEO she had verified that kneeling on her burned leg was a bad idea, and she was now letting it stick out forwards.

Mayday sighed, giving up on trying to look dignified as she basically flopped on the ground. She leaned forward, placing down her flowers by the shrine. From within the bouquet she pulled out a folded piece of paper, which she proceeded to unfold. Ruled paper from a notebook, drawn on which was a rather… ah… _amateur_ depiction of two figures holding hands, on pencil. By the hairstyles, Tatiana didn’t have to guess twice who they were meant to represent.

Mayday was no art scholar like Eve or her bandmate, but the drawing was cute regardless.

“I’m sorry, Zuke. I finally got here and all I have to give you is some weird flowers and a crappy drawing.”

She put the unfolded paper on top of the flowers, and set the drumsticks each holding down an edge to keep it open.  
  


“I… I guess I wasn’t keeping track of time. I’m your best friend and yet somehow… I kinda forgot. I didn't mean to, I swear, but it's been pretty rough. No joking I'm kinda feeling very ' _eeh_ ' still about showing my face in public... uh, not 'cause I didn't want to say hi! You're my buddy, you know that. But after all that I've done... It feels like I don't have the right.”

“Ehr… okay, not really..." She sighed, closing her eyes. "...You know how it is. I didn't really forget... I guess what really happened is that coming here felt too much like a real goodbye and sorta… accepting what happened. To us. To you.”

“...”

“And I can’t… accept it. _I can’t!_ Heck, I can’t even accept you’re gone right now!"

"It’s unfair! You’re the chillest, coolest music man alive in Vinyl City and we were _freakin' awesome_ together, you were the bestest drummer I’ve ever heard, and even though I kept diving headfirst into danger _you kept pulling me outta it,_ ‘cause you just cared that much, even when I was mean to you, and this just, it’s just-!”

Mayday made a horrible anguished noise, burying her face in her hands. It turned into a furious growl. Her breathing was ragged, choking on what had sounded suspiciously like the start of sobbing, and she punched the ground after she realized she shouldn't punch the flowers.

"Why!? What did you expect would happen, Zuke?! What do you want me to do?! We were a team! But you decided to go _stupid_ and thought I'd be cool with you feeding yourself to the fire and left me behind here, like ' _HASTA LA VISTA BABY_ '! Well guess what Zuke, guess what?!"

"I wish you hadn't done that. 'Cause... then you would be here. And even if I didn't make it, then... I wouldn't be all alone."

The guitarist and former rebel stayed like that for a long time. Until her breathing was back under control and her arms stopped shaking.

With a loud breath, she pulled her hands from her face, and down to the guitar’s strings. Her eyes were wet, but her expression was determined, if mournful. No longer trusting her own voice by any and all indications, the last member of Bunk Bed Junction instead began plucking quiet notes out of her inspiration’s guitar.

It took several minutes for Mayday to accustom herself to the guitar and play something recognizable, and it took several more for Tatiana to identify it. It was a slower, slightly altered version of the song May and Zuke played during the Lights Up Audition. It had no drum and the guitar was quiet and sad rather than strident and bold, but it was the same melody, with some changes here and there to make up for the fact it was being played at half the speed and a lower key.  
  
“I’m not ready. Please come back. I miss you.”

Had the song meant something special for the two of them?

She wished to ask. She couldn’t ask.  
She likely wouldn’t ever learn.  
  


Tatiana held her arms behind her back and straightened up, eyes closing as she settled back to listen along with the silent, watchful crowd. 

___

It was several songs later and well into the afternoon that Mayday finally released her grip on the guitar. Utterly exhausted, she slumped like a puppet with its strings cut, Kul Fyra’s instrument resting haphazardly on her lap as the last notes died off. Tatiana knew that arrangement by heart, it was the outro to the Goolings’s last single.

By now a lot of the crowd had dispersed from the guitarist’s impromptu concert. Her skills were sharp, but the sad wail of the guitar without a backbeat behind her turned her music into more of a... sobering experience. It was maybe for the best. This was never meant to be a display, and she suspected May would’ve preferred to do this alone and out of view.

Nevertheless she still got a round of applause and cheers from the remaining audience when she was done. Mayday looked up at the crowd at the noise, flashed a thumbs up and a mildly embarrassed grin that did not reach her eyes.

  
Tatiana shooed off the remainder of the curious onlookers that decided to still keep lingering, before approaching the emotionally exhausted rocker. Goodness, her legs were really starting to hurt from standing around like this. She is not as young as she used to be.

The girl looked up at her weakly, when she offered her hand to help her up. For someone so ferocious, she was so small... Her hand could swallow her entire head and torso. The strange protective urge that struck Tatiana at this realization made her frown uncomfortably.

“Come on, May. Let’s go home.”

Mayday seemed to perk up slightly when called by her shorter nickname. She bent back to retrieve Zuke’s sticks before she took Tatiana’s hand. 

“Yeah… let’s head back. I’m beat. Screw the sun! I wanna cozy up in bed…”

Tatiana smiled with mild amusement, stopping Mayday when she tried to hand back her flaming guitar. The guitarist looked at her with utter confusion as the new persona of Kul Fyra gently snatched the strap of her own guitar and slung it over Mayday’s shoulder, picking up May’s broken guitar instead. The girl’s wide pink eyes followed her blankly, seeing what she was doing but not really making the connection.  
  


“I have been thinking, perhaps you should be the one to keep it.” Tatiana clarified her intentions.  
  


Mayday gaped like a fish out of water, for an embarrasingly long moment.

...

Then, way too late for reason, she pulled back and gasped loudly.  
  


“T-Tati?!” She looked at Kul Fyra’s guitar with reverence, half torn between childish squeals of excitement and the kind of fear of someone worried about damaging a priceless relic. “I can’t?? I can’t! I’m a bandless guitarist, what am I supposed to do?!”

“You keep on rocking,” Tatiana stated, simply.

“Tatiana, I can’t just-” A finger against May’s mouth stopped her.  
  


“You keep on rocking like you’ve always done.” Her eyes softened, just a fraction. “Listen to me, Mayday. Do not commit the same mistake I did. Do not let grief and unfortunate circumstances kill your passion. Understand?”

Mayday gawked at her, apparently struck dumb _(though Tatiana was well aware there wasn’t that much brainpower there in the first place)_ before her eyes began leaking.

Oh no. Here come the sniffles. 

Maybe she should’ve done this back at the tower.  
  


“Thaaankf yoouu-”

**_BZZT  
  
_ **

The Festival Plaza turned dark.

Mayday startled, whipping around to stare at the Grand Qwasa fast enough that she would’ve made herself fall if she hadn’t begun hugging onto Tatiana’s hand merely a second ago. Her tear-streaked eyes were wild with fear, clearly expecting a repeat of last time she was at the Festival Plaza.

Tatiana’s gaze, however, settled in the distance.

It wasn’t only the plaza suffering a blackout. The rest of the city districts were also turning dark. She waited for a while, but no backup generators were turning on. Even the NSR tower remained black.

The only saving grace of the situation was that it was afternoon and it would be several hours left before sunset, so at least nobody would be bumbling around in the dark, even if this was certainly dire problems for the likes of hospitals and transport...

...It was afternoon.  
  


_Afternoon.  
  
_

When the Grand Qwasa was supposed to be reconnected.

One look at the device itself confirmed this. The rings were slowly rotating but the technicians were hanging around, trying to pull out a large cord and looking baffled.

Tatiana closed her eyes. Counted to ten. Smoke and a flame slowly emerged out of her hair anyways.  
  
  


Oh, that engineer is getting _flayed._


	3. Chapter 1 - Aka I am the ghost in the machine and that's not a metaphor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally... introducing the plot, and Zuke properly! Again!  
> This is somewhat of a slower chapter. I apologize for that. Turns out that writing a character coming back from the dead with a reasonable level of freakout was a bit harder than I expected it to be.
> 
> This chapter also introduces Scratch. She's a surprise tool that will help us later.
> 
> Oh yeah, also mention of alcohol in the chapter. While Zuke is most definitely the sort of person to run in the opposite direction of heavy drinking or parties, his best friend is still -Mayday-. Who does not... have the best common sense.

  
  
  


He was falling.

He wouldn’t be able to tell why he was falling, even if he were aware enough to try and remember. Nothing in his blanking memory held an inkling of how and why he ended up like this. Unfolded around him was a black void, its shadows too thick and unnatural for his eyes to ever try to adapt to.

He was essentially blind. He was blind, he was deaf, he was mute, he was cocooned in a blanket of nonexistence that he couldn’t even begin to panic about because even his own brain did not appear to be fully there. He was a passive observer to his own self.

Who was he? _Why_ was he?

He was not sure.

He did not know how long he was stuck like that, fading in and out of a vague sense of consciousness and trapped in darkness. It could have been ages, or it could have been a minute. His sense of time was just one more of the casualties lost to the void.

Then, from nowhere… a distant guitar riff.

He opened his eyes… or, he thought he opened them, but the darkness around him remained just the same. Perennial, unmoving.

Something had changed, though... he could tell. There was a melody in the far horizon, breaching through the stillness.

Familiar.

Though he couldn’t quite put his finger on why, it was missing something. 

He searched through the thick fog blanketing his memory, searching for an answer and finding none. It remained thick as ever, stubbornly clinging to any sense of recognition. Though in the haze... he did find something else. His instincts had awoken, surging at his call like a weary and loyal dog.

The guitar was nice, but it was lonely. It had no grounding rhythm.

It needed a beat.

_‘I could fix that,’_ He found himself thinking, before taking a mental step back. He was not sure why he felt so confident about completing the music, considering he was falling through an eternal black void without an instrument in sight.  
He could be surrounded by the noisiest of trumpets and flutes, and he would not be able to find them in the dark.

Was he a musician?

To his surprise, his hands wrapped around twin objects, coming to rest confidently in his palms. Long and vaguely cylindrical, a painted wood stick and a rounded head for striking. They were not there moments before.  
He gripped them tightly. 

He was a… drummer?  
  
...

But his situation remained the same to his eyes. He was still falling through the darkness, the guitar playing quietly in the far beyond. What use were drumsticks without a drum set? He couldn’t exactly play a groove using air. Maybe he could bang them together? It _would_ make a noise...  
  


_Well…_

_I don’t know._

_Am I really going to sit here forever without even giving it a try?_

The same part of his mind that was too lethargic to feel panic at the strange situation he found himself in, was the same that could not stop him from acting on impulse. So he righted himself in freefall, raised his drumsticks, banged them together for a measure as if to mark himself the rhythm, then struck the air in a simple 4/4 beat.  
  


Except the moment that his sticks made contact with the imaginary snare, the endless void _lit up in blue_ ** _like a spark in an oil barrel.  
  
_**

He recoiled, all senses _(including his sleepy common sense_ ) blazing awake abruptly in the middle of a firestorm.   
Curling up with a pained yell at the sudden sensory overload, the nameless entity raised his hands to his head and squeezed his eyes shut but still failed to hold back the sudden light. His drumsticks were abandoned, yet the same 4/4 drumbeat he’d meant to play enveloped him anyways, coming from no distinct source.

As if recognizing its partner instrument, the guitar grew louder too.

The song was complete. He recognized it now.

...He recognized _himself._

_‘My name is Zuke.’_

_‘...My name is Zuke and I play the drums, and I am half of Bunk Bed Junction. We’re a rock band that lives in a sewer and rebelled against No Straight Roads because we think Vinyl City deserves better. I have a Masters in Fine Arts and Music, I have a toilet seat collection, I’ve got a rocky relationship with my big brother and my best friend is---’_

**_‘Mayday!’_  
  
**

The last of his errant memories finished slotting themselves back into his skull, but Zuke didn’t get any time or peace to review them. His chest burned terribly, the blue flames that arose from his drumsticks had wrapped themselves around his heart and constricted it to the beat of the drum. He cried out, his hands clawing at his ribs as the pain escalated, until he felt something inside him break.

The last thing he heard before the world faded to white was the diminished drum beat, a dim sound of snare and cymbal replacing his own heart. 

___

When Zuke came to, it was to the sound of distant talking, city ambience, and orange light against his eyelids.

And a headache.

A bad one, too.

“Uuhgh... man…”

He doubled his effort to keep his eyes shut and lazed where he lay, trying to trick himself into falling asleep again so he wouldn’t have to deal with his morning routine while his skull threatened to split. He was usually the responsible guy, surely May can deal with him sleeping in for once without setting the couch on fire?

Maybe if he pretended to be sick enough, she might actually make breakfast herself instead of leaving it to him. She didn’t know it yet, but Zuke had been taking a page out of her book, and this would be a great opportunity to practice his puppy eyes. The idea of breakfast in bed did sound terribly nice right then.  
  


...That was a weird dream he’d had, though. Or nightmare? Probably the latter, the sensation of his heart being squeezed felt a little bit too real. The headache made it hard to even recall what it was about, other than it was unpleasant and involved darkness and blue fire. And also their first single, for some reason. That is, the first song May and him released as a serious rock band; not just fooling around with Goolings covers and personal practice pieces for free download. They had come far since then.

_‘Thinking of it, since we’re kind of mainstream now, maybe that CD might count as a collector’s item? ...That’d be great. We might've released that song back when we were an underground no-name band, but ever since we reprised it for Lights Up it sounds like it's in everybody’s mind. It's very nostalgic.’_

In fact, he could hear someone listening to it right at the moment! He could make out the frenetic beat of Four Plus _(which he was still very proud of by the way)_ playing very nearby, almost like it was coming from…

...coming from…

...his _chest_...

He startled, jerking wide awake as he clawed at his ribcage with his hands _(_ or at least, he _felt_ himself fumble with his chest _)_. Okay, _hold on hold on hold on_ . There had to be a reasonable explanation to what he’d heard, and that reason was… Uh...  
...His imagination! Yeah, exactly. He’d just woken up, he was still not totally one hundred percent fully functional in the brain. _Makes sense_. Of course he didn’t really hear music coming from his own organs! That would be stupid. Kind of cool, but stupid.

 _‘Ohh man. I don’t know what happened yesterday to get me like this, but I need an ibuprofen...  
_ _...Uh… actually, hold that thought.’  
  
_

...He would have to seek medicine for his headache later because his momentary panic had made him aware of a far more pressing situation.  
  


...He’d woken up in the middle of the street.  
In the middle of the _Festival Plaza_ , rather.  
  


Zuke began feeling the burn of embarrassment as he took full stock of where he’d chosen to take a nap. It wasn’t even morning as he’d originally thought! He had already slept in for most of the day! The orange light? Not one of the neons in their room, but the light of the setting sun hitting him before it could sink under the horizon. The noise of people walking and talking? Not any of the strays that they’d picked up along their revolution, but passers-by going about their business ¡along the street! Why hadn't he noticed the hard floor?!

It was a small mercy for the distressed drummer that none of them appeared to be too worried about him and his napping spot, or... even looked at him, really. Which was mildly disturbing in its own way - _if he saw a random dude passed out in the middle of the road, the least Zuke could do would be check if they were okay, not just ignore him and let whatever happen_ \- but it did mean he would get to leave the scene with his dignity mostly intact and no unfortunate questions, and hopefully only some dirt scuffs and messy hair for his trouble… he didn’t know, he’d need a mirror to check the damage.

_‘May, what kind of crazy thing did you drag me into this time? Is that why my head’s pounding, a hangover? How did you even convince me to go out for hard drinks? Thinking's pretty hard right now, but that seems off.'  
_

Speaking of...  
  


Drunk enough for a coma or not, it was very out of character for Mayday to just abandon him to the elements like this. Zuke straightened up and looked around himself to try and find out where his bandmate had passed out. If he’d fallen into drunken sleep _somehow_ despite his dislike for this sort of thing, and he was out here in the plaza, she couldn’t possibly be too far away. She was not _that_ much better at holding her alcohol than he was, and she was _much worse_ at moderating her intake. 

But he couldn’t see her anywhere nearby, to his deepening concern.  
  


“May? Are you around?”

Though he called out a few times, he received no response. So maybe she had walked away, after all? Zuke couldn’t help but feel a little hurt if that was the case.. Their friendship was very much one based on having each other’s backs, and he knew she was strong enough to carry him ( _and often did, sometimes to his annoyance)_ so he didn’t really understand why she didn’t at least move him somewhere a little more… uh, private.

Hmm… no, that seemed wrong. May could be a little rough and impulsive, but she had a big heart, and it felt extremely weird for her to abandon him without a good reason. Maybe she had to go somewhere urgent, or fetch something quickly? Did they get into an argument last night, and he’d walked it off? ...That one possibility would make his current situation even more potentially embarrassing, but it beat the alternative, which might be that May could’ve gotten into legitimate danger. Maybe she just had passed out really hard somewhere out of view and she couldn't hear him.

...But weren’t they in the middle of a revolution?  
...Why would Mayday take him out for drinks if they were wanted faces?  
...His head hurt, but he didn't feel parched, or nauseous. If anything, the sharp pain he felt was more like he was hit in the head with a blunt object and he'd only begun to sleep it off.

...  
  


Zuke felt himself tense.  
  


“May!”  
No response.

Zuke grit his teeth, getting up from the floor to investigate where his wayward best friend had gone off to.

 _'Okay, don't panic, Zuke. It's not the end of the world to wake up alone in the middle of the street with no memory of how you got there. There has to be a perfectly mundane explanation for this, just calm down and think for a moment.'_ This would be much easier if he could remember what the heck he’d done last night! He brushed his hands through his hair and closed his eyes with an exhale. Let go of his worries, think of a plan... He still had his phone on him, right? Check the Festival Plaza more thoroughly, and if she wasn’t there, send her a text message. And then if she didn’t answer to - _that_ -, begin searching starting with the sewers. He nodded to himself, relaxed once he had a clear course of action.  
  


Except.

_When he tried to follow through he couldn’t take a single step._

In fact, he couldn’t move forward even a little. Or to the sides, or backwards, or laterally. It was like he was walking into an invisible wall he could not feel, but the more he tried to push the more he felt like an immaterial rope at his throat was cutting off his airflow.  
Other than it didn’t really feel like it was at his _throat, per se_.

Faced with this highly improbable, invisible and intangible obstacle that seemed to _somehow_ be pulling at his entire being, he was left with only one choice:  
  


**_Panic!_  
  
**

“Uh... hello! A little help here! I think I’m stuck!”

No response.  
  


“No, seriously, I’m stuck! It’s like some some joker tied me down. Could I get a hand? Please? I'll owe you one! Guys?”

No response. Pedestrians of all kinds ignored his pleas as they walked right by him, chatting and laughing among themselves and looking at brand new screens displaying small time artists Zuke didn't known anything about, nor was aware were sponsored by NSR. Some people even stopped by a dainty little flower shrine he hadn't noticed earlier, looking at it grimly even as they ignored him.  
  


“This isn’t funny! I'm not joking, I’m dead serious! I need help! I’m stuck, or paralyzed... okay, maybe not really paralyzed, but I don't know, it feels really weird! I need to leave here! Please? Zed? Miss Barbara?...Anybody?”

No response.  
  


Zuke was never someone who lost his temper easily. Other than around his brother ( _who made pushing his buttons into an artform_ ) his major issue tended to be the opposite: his avoidance of confrontation, which had already cost him a relationship. It was a weakness he was getting better at managing, true, but the point was, he was not an easily angered person.

_However._

Seeing himself surrounded by uncaring people, who continued on with their lives without even deigning to shoot a glance at him or acknowledge him as he begged for help…

Now, that was maybe enough to begin burning away the patience of an already panicking, already upset musician.

Trying to claw and bite into the invisible obstacle holding him down ( _nylon strings? A forcefield!?_ ), Zuke’s voice cracked as he let out a roar.  
  


 _“_ Can you at least try to look **my WAY?!”** **  
  
**

There was a loud electric buzz.

Two things occurred simultaneously:

  1. The Plaza’s lights failed at once, causing a few spooked noises from the public at the unexpected blackout.  
  

  2. _Zuke got electrocuted.  
  
_



Well… not quite electrocuted. The sudden electrical discharge that coursed through him made him yelp in shock and quit his struggling, but although unpleasant… it didn’t hurt. His vision blurred for a moment, and his headache pounded stronger for a beat, but after he gave himself a moment he felt completely fine.

...More than fine, actually. If anything, he felt more energized than he was a moment ago, and his headache had sapped away entirely.

That was… odd.

“Sheesh, darling. What a ruckus. I know you’re new to this and all but could you relax with the dramatics? Some people are trying to pass eternity in restful peace, you know.”

Zuke gasped, out of breath at the voice a few feet behind him. It wasn’t anybody he knew - _the smooth and suave feminine voice did not match any faces he remembered at all_ \- but it didn't matter, finally, someone was talking to him! He’d take any helping hand he could get!

...It was a pink cat.

  
  
  


A very… strange pink cat, looking at him with unnervingly wide eyes next to a pole and the pile of flowers sitting a few feet away. It didn't appear to cast any shadow.

Zuke blinked. It wasn’t the technicolor fauna (Ellie was _cyan_ ) that brought him pause so much as the realization there was nobody else that could’ve spoken but _the cat_. He didn’t get to wonder about it very long, because the cat began frowning.  
  


“Hey darling, don’t ya know it’s rude to stare? Psshhh, and I was taking you for the polite kinda man.”

...What do you even answer to that?

“Oh. Uh …I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. It’s only that, I hadn’t expected you to look like a… er, quite as unique as you do.” _Also it was staring at him first! That was kind of hypocritical._

“Oh? And what were you expecting me to look like then, honey?”

“...Not a cat?”

“Psshhh,” The cat made a dismissive noise, licking its paw. “Typical human anthropocentrism. You think humans are the only animals capable of higher thought?”

Zuke, struck dumb, opened his mouth trying to come up with something to say when the cat raised the paw to stop him.

“Actually, don’t answer that. I’m only messin’ with ya, darling,” The cat wiggled its… eyebrows, which only made Zuke more uncomfortable. It stretched languidly, its back arching. “Name’s Scratch, am the boss lady ‘round here. What do I call you, rookie?”

“I’m Zuke. Hello, Scratch,” He held out his hand for the cat before he realized he still could not move, and the cat was also making no move towards him, and honestly a cat and a man shaking hands probably would look quite stupid on both of their parts anyways. “I-I think I've run into some _kind_ of trouble, could you-?”

“Ooooh- Zuke!” The cat interrupted him, making a circling gesture with its forepaws. “I’ve heard that name around! Seems like you’re the talk of the town ‘round here, love. Something something Rock Revolution? I would ask for an autograph but you know,” Scratch resumed licking its paw and eyed him, “Cats don’t really care for music very much.”  
  


Zuke had the distinct impression he was being tested. 

Though he didn’t know about what yet.  
  


“Right, yeah, that's me,” Zuke started, a hand brushing the back of his neck, “...can you help me out, Scratch? I’m kind of… stuck… here. I don’t know how or why, it’s as if I’m stuck in some kind of forcefi-”

“Nope! Apologies darling but I can’t help you out.” Scratch interrupted him yet again, all too cheerily.  
  


Zuke felt his heart sink.

“ _Why not_?!” He didn’t mean to shout, really, he felt a bit bad, but his nerves were so shot by this point.

“ ‘Cause I’m stuck here as well, Zukie boy. That’s kinda what happens when you’re dead.”  
…

“...Come again?” He didn't even know what he was replying to. Either the nonsense Scratch just said or the uncomfortable familiarity the feline had decided to treat him with.  
  


Scratch snickered.  
  


“Have you looked at yourself? Like, reeeeaaaally looked at yourself, darling?” 

“Of course I have! Okay, so maybe not today…? I just woke up. But I feel fine! I mean, I had a bit of a headache earlier, but I've had worse aches-”

In trying to demonstrate to Scratch, he stared down his own hands, which… was a mistake.  
  


He.

_He had no hands._

Or arms.

He didn’t have any legs either! In fact, when he looked down, he couldn’t even see his own torso!

No, no, wait. If he squinted, he could still see the outline of his own body! He glowed faintly in the dark, like an hologram running out of power. Looking even more closely he could make out the silhouettes of bones through his own skin like an X-ray. 

…

**_PANIC!!_  
  
**

“Whoa whoawoawoawoa, darling relax!” Scratch startled at his terrified shriek, hopping onto all fours and reaching out with a paw while Zuke reared and scrambled back in fear like he was really a zonkey. 

He didn’t get far, of course. He was still stuck.  
  


“WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?!” 

“I told you Zukie boy, you’re dead!”

“No, I’m NOT dead! I feel alive! This isn’t real- It’s just a dream!”

“Darling.”

“There’s NO way this is-” Unable to come up with a proper way to continue his train of denial, he pulled at his hair before he whipped back with a growl and pointed to the small crowd that now seemed to be gathering around him, staring in confusion. “What about _them_ , huh? Are they dead too?! Because they keep ignoring my existence no matter how much I'm shouting!”

Scratch tilted its head at him. Its- no, her tone seemed almost… pitying.

“...You know they can’t really hear you, right? Or… see you.”

“They’re looking at me right now!”

“They’re not really looking at you. Look up, rookie.”

So Zuke did.  
  


Above him the Grand Qwasa spun slowly, looking dark and worse for wear but functioning. Milling around at the edge of it were what appeared to be a bunch of technicians, looking distressed. How did he miss that he’d awoken on the podium?  
And much to his chagrin, he had to admit that the crowd was staring up at the dark Qwasa, not directly at him.  
  


By this point Zuke had found himself curling up into an almost fetal position, hugging his legs and hiding his face against his knees (with little to no success due to the transparency of his own body). He thought he was hyperventilating, but if he paid attention no air was actually coming in or out. Scratch was watching him with a frown, shifting uneasily.  
  


“...You good, darling?” Scratch asked, voice a little bit softer.  
  
“...If I’m being honest, no.” Zuke was mildly impressed with himself for not answering with a bitter snark given how stressed he was feeling.

There was another problem. Looking at the Grand Qwasa had finally jogged his memory regarding the events of the last… night.  
The scorch marks, the fixed and replaced screens… it had not just been a night, had it?  
  


“...So I’m really dead?”

“I mean, what else could you be? Okay, to be honest you’re kind of a reaaaaally weird ghost, rookie. Usually you’re supposed to resemble your appearance in life, unless you happened to forget it. But you look all shocky and fiery and kinda boney, and you don't sound like you forgot yourself? Looking at ya is kinda terrifying, not gonna lie, even if you are clearly a gentleman.”

_'I look ‘shocky’ and ‘fiery’?'_

“...Right...” Zuke made a steadying exhale, slowly bringing his hands to his head as he tried to unpack his situation.

He didn't have much luck with it.  
  


“...Dammit. No, this can't be- Why? Why now? We were so close! To bringing _real_ , genuine change to the system! We had _just_ unearthed what happened to the Goolings and put rock back on the map! And... _this_ is how I die? Not for any meaningful reason, just an _accident_?”

Truthfully, Zuke didn’t really regret his self-sacrifice.  
He was mad that he was dead, of course, he felt outright _robbed_. He was a young guy! Who was finally beginning to feel kinda fullfilled in life! May and him had always half-jokingly half-seriously daydreamed about becoming as notorious as the Goolings, but it would seem instead he was doomed to join the long list of musical martyrs whose lives were cut short before they could realize their full potential.

But the choice had been cruel in its simplicity. Either let Mayday get killed or willingly bite the bullet, and he knew he would not be able to live with himself if he chose the former. Zuke would gladly throw himself to the fire a thousand times more if it spared his bandmate, and he knew it.

“...Poor May. She’s got to be devastated…” He sighed glumly, closing his eyes as he bumped his head against his knees.  
”What will happen to Bunk Bed Junction now? And Nadia, too… I hope I at least gave her some sense of closure before this, but… Oh... Aw man! West! We’d just made up! He was finally going to reply to my messages, and… why are you laughing?”

Scratch was staring and snickering at him, and though he’d been able to ignore it thus far, he couldn’t help but feel peeved. Can't a guy have a moment?   
  


“Nothing, just… heeeheee. You’re the kinda fellow that cares too much, aren’t cha? You just realized you dead and what you’re worried about isn’t how this affects you but how it affects everyone else. How very interesting of you, darling.”

“Uh… yeah.” Zuke frowned at the cat, sitting straighter. “I mean… if you’re right and I’m dead, then my story is over, isn’t it? Nothing’s gonna happen to me anymore... nothing I care about, anyways. What I’m worried about is the people who are gonna be affected by what happened. I don’t want them to get hurt or feel miserable because of a genuine accident.” He rubbed one of his arms as he glanced at the ground. Though he felt the contact of his own hand against his body, the sensation was... dim.  
  


“So would you say you’ve got… unfinished business?”

Zuke blinked. That was not what he'd said at all.  
  


“Pshh,” Scratch made a dismissive noise. “It’ll make sense later. Although...”  
  
The cat’s expression had turned thoughtful, her large eyes moving to observe the Qwasa technicians and electricians that were still lingering around the podium, talking among themselves. Apparently they were all reaching for some conclusion.  
  
  
“So, remember how I said that I can't help you? 'Cause we're both dead?"

"Ah... yeah?" Zuke frowned, his attention snapped back to the cat from the technicians. He wasn't keen on how Scratch had decided to suddenly turn cryptic ( _they were both dead, what was she gonna gain?_ ) but he couldn't deny his curiosity was piqued.  
  
"Weeeeell... so I was only partially telling the truth. I can't _help_ help you... but I can help you help yourself." She must've noticed the way he perked up and turned to listen to her intently, because she flashed her teeth in a manner too smug for a real cat. "IF... you do me a favor in return, darling."

"Oh." Somehow, he already had sort of guessed she would say that. He cast the cat a wary glance, eyes narrow. "...What kind of favor do you want me to do?"

"Heh, we can discuss _business_ later, honey. For now, have a piece of free advice: If you don't get a move on, you're likely going to end up stuck for realsies."

Zuke gawked.

"Stuck for... 'realsies'?"  
  
"Isn't that what you wanted to? Leave this place and find your friend or something?" Scratch answered while gesturing to the Grand Qwasa with a paw.  
  


“It’s the second blackout in less than twenty-four hours.” A vaguely familiar voice spoke up close to them, though not _at_ them. Zuke recognized the man; Timmy, the ‘ _qwasa doctor_ ’ as May had put it. They had run into him a few times along their adventure. The gentle old man was looking harried as he spoke to a fellow technician, who was bent over a square of concrete that protruded from the ground. “No ifs or buts, something’s got to be wrong with the Qwasa that slid past the testing phase. We got to disconnect it again.”

“Must we really? Isn’t it enough to just… shut it off? The whole procedure is so time consuming,” Groused the other technician as they stood up.

“I don’t know. Do you really wanna be the one to tell Miss Tatiana why her city keeps flickering off without warning? If you wanna switch our roles-”

“-Actually I think we should disconnect the Qwasa, yes. This is an excellent idea.”  
  


Zuke hovered over the two technicians, staring down at them as they opened a metal vent over the square of concrete, revealing a large familiar black cable. He was close enough to touch them, but his hands just went through their bodies like there was nothing in the way but smoke and lights. He looked back to the feline spirit with agitation.

"But, how? It's not for lack of trying! I'm already stuck!"

"No, I don't think you're stuck, rookie. Not - _yet_ -, only if you keep wasting time. You've just been trying to get around like you still have legs, haven't you? But you don't have any anymore. You're not a body, you're a soul."

The drummer made a frustrated noise through his teeth _(were they still there?)_ , brushing his hands through his hair as he looked to the ground. He could barely see his own limbs under the light of the setting sun. "...But I don't understand! What difference does it make?"

" _All of it,_ love _._ "  
  
Before Zuke could ask for more clarification, Scratch looked at him with a strangely intense expression.  
"Consider a leaping flame... You need a torch to burn. A spirit without a substance to host it cannot exist, not for long. This is the limitation you need to find your way around."  
  


 _'Spirit within a substance... a ghost in the machine?'  
_ Zuke had not meant to be literal with that thought. He had not actually read the book, but was familiar enough with the term from philosophy research at some point. He always was someone more given towards practical thinking, but upon hearing Scratch's words, and looking at the Grand Qwasa hovering over them, the phrase just popped into his mind.

Grand Qwasa which, under his frantic attention, was beggining to spark above him.  
...So was the cable that the technicians were trying to work with.

“Oh, no.” Timmy muttered under his breath, pulling back his younger associate with growing concern before bending to handle it himself. “She’s ornery.”

“How can it be sparking if the whole power grid of the Plaza is down? It should not be generating power,” Said the other technician.

“I don’t know. Very bad though, can’t disconnect her like this. Maybe it’s a problem with the Plaza’s wiring. Go kill the power grid.”  
  


Zuke pulled away his hand, in surprise. The gigantic cable seemed to stop sparking the moment he stopped touching it and trying to magically will the technicians away by force of unhappy staring.

_'I can do that?'_

He touched the socket again, and this time it did not spark. At least it didn’t until Timmy approached it again, at which point Zuke narrowed his eyes and mentally warned.  
 _Don’t._

The wire sparked again, causing the old technician to frown with concern, and filling Zuke's mind with further questions.  
It looked like he had bought himself _some_ time with his discovery, but as Zuke watched the other electrician pull keys to a hidden electrical fuse box at the other side of the plaza, he knew he was about to run out of it. Next to him, Scratch observed his actions intently.  
  
 _Think, Zuke. Think..._

_'Ghost in a machine. What else could be the machine?'_

The wires had responded to his will…  
Wires like… any electrical circuit. Like the power grid they were about to shut off!

 _'Does it_ need _to be a machine?'_

Reacting on a hunch, the drummer leaned towards the cable, grabbed onto it with both hands as it sparked wildly _(he felt nothing, no heat, nada)_ and, then… used it to _pull himself,_ as if he were rock climbing with a rope, instead of attempting to walk towards it.  
The most unusual thing happened.  
  


Instead of the cable getting pulled off the socket, as would happen if he still had any kind of real force or mass, Zuke got pulled _into_ the cable.  
It was a foreign sensation, as if he was made of fabric strips yanked through a vacuum cleaner. Though he assumed that should have felt painful in at least _some_ capacity, it only made him feel mildly uncomfortable.  
The fact that he appeared to have been crunched into an indistinct fireball was fairly more concerning, honestly.  
  


“Whoah!”  
Zuke made a surprised yelping noise, causing mischievous snickers out of Scratch and a surprised grunt from Timmy as the wires sparked once again.  
  
"Not exactly what I had in mind, Zukie boy, but I'll take it." He heard Scratch chide him, too disoriented with his current situation to even try look at the cat. "Hmm... I had a feeling you were something special, rookie."

"...Special?" Zuke tried to question, voice cracking as he was dazed by the change in perspective. Well, he was glad to see that he was still able to talk (if only _with other ghosts_ ) while lacking a literal mouth. His vision from within the ground was strange, not quite ‘seeing’ his surroundings but able to ‘feel’ them as outlines in differing shades of blue. He could sense the outline of Timmy, shining inside as if full of neon markers, and Scratch nearby as a blindingly white flame.  
He could not see it, but he had the distinct impression Scratch was grinning at him.

“Heheeeh... It'll make sense later.” The other spirit answered unhelpfully before she seemed to sink into thoughtfulness. "Buuuuut... as for my favor..."

Uh oh.

"...I want you to get out of this place and come back to me when you understand what your business here is."  
  
Wait. _What?_  
  
The drummer tried to open his mouth to question, when he was interrupted by a surprisingly loud ' _Now **GO.**_ ' from the feline spirit. Without even thinking about it Zuke zoomed along the length of the cable, sinking past the sockets, through the ground, and wherever it took him. Outlines of objects and wires underground flew past his vision, he couldn’t even see where he was going anymore. He was, however, suddenly made fairly aware that he was running out of time by his rushing past the other technician… who had pulled open the fuse box.   
  
"How do I know what my business is?!" He shouted as he flew down the wire like a literal bolt. Startled by the sudden rush of events, he forgot to add, ' _why are you so sure I'll come back?_ '

But he could hear Scratch holler as he darted away.

“You will know, Zukie darling. _You will know._ "

He couldn’t stay around to ask.  
As the qwasa technician cut the power right behind him, Zuke was set free into Vinyl City’s massive power grid.

___  
  


It took a frankly embarrassing amount of bumbling around for Zuke to reorient himself and finally wind up somewhere he recognized. 

This new method of transportation was simultaneously awesome and incredibly inconvenient.

Zipping around at top speed through the power grid was _amazing_. Sure, half the time he couldn’t see where he was going, but oh man, when he did! No door was barred, no secrets locked, nothing was out of reach! In a city as modern and cosmopolitan as Vinyl City, nearly every single space was connected to the grid somehow. It was what made the blackouts so worrying, after all.  
  
Watching his city glittering under the last rays of the sun from the perspective of a spotlight on a skyscraper was an euphoric experience.  
  


The downside was that the power lines were not designed with the passage of incorporeal citizens in mind. There wasn’t exactly any signage, or main roads, or any way to identify where he was other than taking stock of the buildings he could see in passing.  
  
Which meant that his odds of winding up in the dead end that was _a smart toilet_ were remarkably high if he was not careful.

  
...He may not have a body anymore but he still felt the need for a shower...  
  


But _finally,_ through sheer trial and error, Zuke had found himself back at the old alley. Settled over the power lines crisscrossing the street, he kept watch over Aunty’s restaurant, and a little bit behind her place, the manhole entrance to their home.  
The street was quiet and empty, with only Aunty herself sweeping the floor of her restaurant and blissfully unaware of the spirit perched but a few feet over her head.

In the silence, he could hear the beat of the drum again.

It hounded him now.  
  


_'So… now what?'  
  
_

Zuke had evaded being trapped within the machine, but… he was still dead. What did it matter if he got trapped in the first place? There was nothing left for him anymore. He got _ended_. All that was left for him was to observe his home city as an absent spectator.  
Perhaps fade away with time. He did not actually get to ask Scratch if ghosts can dissappear.

It wasn’t like he could change things anyways, even if he stuck around. It wasn’t like he could talk. Or, do anything, really. Zuke somehow doubted that haunting people in their sleep to give them enlightening dreams encouraging them to move on was actually part of his new abilities, as nice as that would be. His friends and last family member would be heartbroken for a while, but they would live on. They would have to.   
  
They… had to.  
  


...So why had he felt such a gnawing urge to free himself?  
...And why did the prospect of abandoning his loved ones and hoping for the best for them disturb him so?  
  


_'No, I’m being ridiculous. This isn’t an Eve situation! I didn’t go talk to Nadia because I was a coward who couldn’t even properly set my own boundaries, much less say no. This time I really can’t go back, at all. No matter how much I want to.'  
_

The realization, and the belated guilt of words unsaid, didn’t exactly help his mood.

And yet…

…

 _'Who is to say I can’t?  
_ _Go back, that is.'_

He wouldn’t be able to talk to them, nor affect their lives in any meaningful way. But there were so many thoughts he couldn’t get out of his mind.

How Mayday was doing.  
How Nadia was doing.  
How was his brother doing.  
Was Ellie okay too?  
  
What did NSR do about all this?  
Did they keep their promise?  
Or did Tatiana take this as evidence Rock is dead?

How did B2J’s fans react to his death?

Was Vinyl City stabilizing…?  
...Or did his end turn into fuel for further chaos, not the fun kind?

Zuke held his head in his intangible hands. The more he thought, the more questions piled up.

_'Perhaps… I’m just not ready to be dead?'  
  
_

He supposed that made sense. The definition of a ghost was a spirit that couldn’t move on.  
  


 _'Hm.  
_ _Okay. I’m getting overwhelmed. Let’s just tackle this one question at a time.'_

And a potential answer to at least one of those questions was just a few feet away, in their cozy sewer home.  
  


“Here goes nothing,” He muttered to himself before sinking back into the power lines and following the wiring underground.

___

The first thing that Zuke noticed was that it was dark.

That by itself shouldn’t have been too concerning. The city appeared to be still struggling with the blackout that had occured while he was at the Grand Qwasa. Power had returned to some locations, but not all, and the outskirts had the least priority of all districts.

The issue was that Zuke kept a backup generator specifically to deal with this kind of thing. A small thing running on diesel, rigged to automatically turn on the moment electricity failed. It was cheap, and buying fuel could be a pain, but it had proved quite invaluable as the power problems kept getting worse. May and him would’ve loved to get their hands on an actual mini qwasa generator they could power through their own practicing, but those things cost a small fortune and were way too tightly controlled still. One day Qwasa technology might become commonplace, but that day was not today.

In any case, the generator had not automatically turned on, which meant it had either ran out of fuel or it was kept deliberately shut down.  
Which meant that most likely, there was nobody home.  
The absence of any noise from either May or the many strays they had ended up ‘adopting’ into their sewer was beginning to confirm Zuke’s suspicions as he made his way through.

The drummer fumbled along the wiring of their living room in the dark, along the practice room, then up to DJ Zam’s studio, before he finally gave up trying to explore underground during a blackout. Apparently becoming a spirit had _not_ given him the ability to see in the dark, other than giving him a vague awareness of where objects sat.  
He left the studio and backtracked down to the living room again to find that generator.   
  


_'We don’t have that much stuff here, it can’t be hard to find. This is the arcade, that’s the TV… the fairy lights...  
_ _Aha! Found it!'_

Thankfully, it seemed that the generator still had fuel in it. Someone had simply shut it off.

Zuke flicked the switch and the engine slowly started chugging. A few seconds later the sewer’s lights turned on, still dim but gaining intensity.

He sighed in satisfaction, pleased with his returned ability to see in more than a vague feeling of shapes. The sound of electronics running also was far more comforting to him than the dead quiet, too.  
  


The living room looked the same as usual, undisturbed. It was also completely devoid of any living being, except for one cockroach by his sleeping spot on the couch that made Zuke’s spirit want to leave his body through his throat. As his spirit had already left his body a while ago, however, he was just left to deal with his terror in silence.

Scampering out of the living room as much as a ghost moving through wires can do that, Zuke bumbled through their sewer home in search of any of the other inhabitants _(who were not roaches, that is)_. Zam wasn’t there, neither was Gigi. Their underground concert stage was also empty, which was predictable if there was no band. Kliff also seemed to have abandoned the premises (‘ _and after how things turned out he better have’, he grumbled to himself_ ), leaving the strategy room also abandoned.  
  


He was on his way to check on Ellie when he finally was hit by a realization hard enough it might as well be a sack of bricks.

_'Wait a moment._

_I, a dead guy, turned on a generator.  
_ _I… a ghost... that should be able to do nothing but watch… just did a thing that affects other people.'  
  
_

Zuke took a moment to consider this over.

Then he _bolted_ back the way he came, his mindfiring on all cylinders.

What other things could he do?  
What other things could he touch?!

Why didn't that cat tell him-?!  
  


He was interrupted from his mad dash by the sound of a squabble somewhere mildly distant.

 _Oh! There_ ** _is_** _someone around!_  
Zuke jerked to a stop, trying to listen in to where the noise was coming from. He seemed to be half-right. There _were_ people around, but they were not on their _side_ of the sewer.

That was to say… whatever was happening, was happening in the tunnels of the sewer that actually functioned as sewers. Not the blocked off and sanitated rooms May had claimed for a home.  
  


Following the noise, Zuke followed the wiring out of Ellie’s room and into the greater sewer system. There was not much he could follow or access out there. There were ceiling lights that he assumed were put there for the benefit of workers, and little else. It was enough to move around, and that was that.

The dead rocker could begin to make out several voices as he went. At least four. They appeared to be shouting at each other. Most of them seemed rather indistinct, but one of them, speaking malay with a deeply familiar rhythm and cadence, caused Zuke to unwittingly hurry up his movement.  
  


In the distance, he could see someone turning a corner, followed by a squad of people. Zuke could not make out either colors or features with the scant ambient light filtering from the streets above, but he didn’t need to. The large square shaped silhouette he had caught a glimpse of was unmistakable to him.

Zuke stopped his chase, staring blankly into the darkness as he was struck by realization.

“...West?”

  
  



	4. Chapter 2 - Aka Good Thing I Played Ghost Trick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I assume you guys saw DK West up there as one of the major characters.  
> Hm. Yeah. So. Uh.  
> Maybe choosing to write this guy seriously as a major character while being non-malay myself was a bit of a MISTAKE jesus christ  
> Regardless I'm committed to writing him because a) Well, makes sense he's an important character as Zuke's bro, b) I haven't seen any fic where he takes a major role yet, so here we are. But I am not kidding when I say 80% of my time writing this chapter was spent researching bahasa rojak and colloquial malaysian english and pouring over West's dialogue ingame then trying to write something that makes sense, and that's even AFTER deciding not to write him in actual malay for the sake of my sanity and readability.
> 
> When it comes to West, consider anything that goes [between brackets like these] to be meant to be colloquial standard malay.  
> Even then I'm 100% sure he will come off as hilariously wrong to anybody who actually lives in Malaysia and for that I apologize. I shall accept the beating stick. Please help.
> 
> On less 'DK West related suffering' news, my shipper heart has unfortunately gotten the best of me and there's some references to unrequited mayzuke, oops

“...West?”  
  


Zuke had not expected an answer, and he did not get one. But he had to verbalize his thoughts before he could even begin to understand the scene before him.

In the dark, not far away from him, stood the large figure of DK West. It was hard to tell with so little ambient light, but he looked worse for wear. When he shifted backwards, the moonlight that filtered through a sewer grate ( _Moonlight? He’d been running around the power grid longer than he thought_ ) struck across his brother’s torso and face, confirming his identity under the pale glow. His stubble appeared particularly unkempt, and he was grinning, but in that uncertain way he did whenever he knew he was in deep trouble. Zuke also noticed the start of bruising around his left eye.  
  


“Heh heh heh. [Can’t win a fight fair against the best issit?]” His older brother snickered before his expression narrowed. “We don't need to do this missy! [Walk out and we don’t embarrass each other ah?]”

Contrary to West’s bravado, the situation didn’t appear to favor him in the least. Surrounding him were four people, all of diverse statures and appearances but all wearing either hoodies or jackets and baggy clothes in shades of black and gray. They were either carrying bats or metal poles, except for one of them who appeared to be carrying a _knife_ , whereas West was just unarmed.

“What are you talking about? Poda! The only one who’s gonna be red in the face is you after we’re done putting you in your _place_ , music man. You don’t have any magic bulls to hide yourself behind anymore.” Said the knife-wielder, a woman with a spiny haircut, who could be almost as tall as Nadia. Considering the way the others appeared to respond to her, she was likely to be the ringleader of these thugs.

“Our place now, man! It’s the counter-revolution!” Hollered one of the bat-carriers, a shorter guy.  
  


Zuke was beginning to highly suspect this was no rap battle that was about to take place.

His brother cast the thugs a look midway between anger and anxiety, even while still maintaining his customary cheshire cat grin. He did look genuinely upset, which was concerning.  
“Counter revolution? No lah, [told you, don’t care for this city’s politics.] We talk this already, alright missy? [What I care for is you messing with family matters. Can't respect the people, then out with you.] Now!”

“Alright then… Say goodnight to your kneecaps!”  
  


Zuke’s heart stopped as the knife-wielder jumped at his brother, poised to stab. West yelped and backstepped, raising his arms to defend himself and batting away the thuggish woman with a massive hand before she could do too much damage. She was sent tumbling back with a shout, but even in the darkness he knew that West’s hand had not escaped the sharp implement unscathed.

_What-?! why-  
'These people are really out to beat up my brother!'_

Despite DK West’s intimidating body frame and strength, the drummer knew the truth. His older brother was not really a fighter. 

That was not to say he couldn’t hold his own, the many times Zuke ended up eating dirt after roughhousing with West were plenty evidence to that. But despite his brash nature, his brother genuinely had zero interest in being seen as a brute. West didn’t care for either politics or violence; the only dominance he wanted to assert was over grooves. After the events of the Rock Revolution ( _and the workout it had given them_ ), Zuke suspected he had outdone his older brother as a ( _heavy quotations_ ) " _warrior"_ , no matter how uncomfortable the realization he was more of a thug than West was made him.

( _...Putting the fact that he did not make it out alive aside_ ).  
  


So even despite the strength advantage, in a four versus one, unarmed… these were not very good odds for West.  
At least, if he didn’t account for his brother’s Wayang Kulit.

The other goons leapt at West when their ringleader was knocked away, hollering their battlecries with raised blunt weapons.  
  


“Aah! Dah lah tu!” 

His brother charged forward like a bull. The poles and bats connected, and Zuke flinched in increasing concern at the meaty sound from the impacts, but by lowering his profile West did manage to avoid the bonk to the head. Using his arms to protect himself and his noggin as a ram, he trampled one of the goons and knocked away another, who squawked before failing his metaphorical athletics check and ending up in the stream of foul-smelling water.

“AHNANANANA HECK NAH!” Screamed the goon shrilly, immediately digging himself out of the sewage and beating the retreat.

“Dude, seriously? Get back here! Are you really just bailing ‘cause of a lil bit of… crap?!” The knife-wielder protested, still picking herself up.

“Nah, I said I was cool with a fight! I didn’t say anything about a fight while covered in...” The goon seemed to panic further as he avoided wording his thoughts, spitting out water as he rushed off. “It’s just one guy and he has no weapons! You can handle him!”

“ _Fine_! You just… run back home, you coward!” Shouted the ringleader back, turning back towards their ‘quarry’ only to find him halfway across the tunnel, distance increasing.

 _“Yesss, you go West! Get away man!”_ Zuke cheered, even knowing his support would not be heard. His big brother’s charge had never stopped, instead turning into a full sprint as the large man made his way away from the gang with surprising speed. Taking a whole two seconds to remember that he couldn’t physically run anymore, the drummer’s spirit scrambled around before he sank into the wires and bolted after his kin.

Zuke might not be able to physically do anything about the situation, but he couldn’t just leave West alone to these brutes. He needed to see, _he needed to do something!_

_Somehow!  
  
_

“Get his ass!” Shouted the knife-wielder as the remaining thugs got to their bearings.

Down the sewer the odd pack went, three goons chasing down one indie rapper followed by a ghost.

But the chase did not last long, nowhere as long as needed. All too soon the tunnel came to an abrupt end, boxing West in with his pursuers approaching hot on his tail.  
The large man reached up towards another of the grates in the ceiling, from which some of the light from the moon and the streets filtered through. He was tall enough to pull at the bars, and did just that, bending them out of shape. 

“C’mon… c’mon…! [Gimme something to work with!]” The rapper growled to no one, jaw clenched.  
  


Zuke watched this, puzzled. 

_‘West? What are you doing?’_ Was he trying to climb out of the sewer through the grate hole? It was small enough it would’ve given Zuke trouble to slip through, and he was a lean guy. Even assuming West could pull himself up far enough, Zuke doubted he would fit...

He watched with growing confusion, until he saw a faint movement against the wall in his peripheral vision. A sad little shadow cast on the concrete, weak and barely noticeable with so little light to cast it.

The realization hit him.  
 _...That’s it then. That’s the problem!_

  
  


Zuke was not particularly wise to his brother’s shadow puppetry abilities. He had _known_ he had them, yeah, but by the time they made themselves apparent West and him had been right in the middle of falling out. And with Zuke’s burgeoning pride, and West’s growing resentment, the last thing in the drummer’s mind was asking for a detailed explanation of this cool new thing his brother could do.

 _But_ , he had picked up some of the mechanics of it from observing him.  
  
Particularly during their rap battles.

  
DK West always kept himself and the wall for his warrior bull lit up, even if he liked to have his fans shut off the rest of the streetlights for dramatic effect. Although his control over shadows was quite cool, he didn’t seem to be able to do anything with the darkness blanketing the rest of the street. Most likely, West’s power wasn’t general shadow manipulation, it was controlling his own shadow specifically.

Which meant that he needed a light source.

...That didn’t currently exist.

...Because they were underground and the power blackout still affected the sewers.

_  
Uh oh.  
  
_

“Stop running away,” growled the ringleader.

“[Would love to lah but that knife very sharp,]” West answered flippantly, pretending to ignore her as he cracked open the grate. The bull shadow on the wall stirred slightly, but it was still too weak to attack. It barely affected the light levels.

As he finally understood the real gravity of the situation, the thugs descended on his brother. West kicked the ringleader away again, this time before she could actually hurt him, but unless a miracle happened in the form of unexpected backup or the power returned it was going to be a losing battle.

Well... there was Zuke. He _was_ unexpected backup.  
He had to do _something._

But... that was the problem?

He… couldn’t do anything. What was he gonna do? He didn't have his drumsticks, or even any hands to throw at these pricks, at least not tangible ones. He was a ghost, comes with the territory.  
  
…He was a ghost that _had turned on_ a generator.

The undead drummer raced up the power lines to the ceiling, clumsily rushing in search of something, _anything_ useful and winding up at one of the shut off LED lights forming the barebones electric circuit down there, there for sanitation workers for use.  
He wrapped his intangible hands over it in a panic. 

_Okay, brother. Here's to hoping this is your miracle.  
  
_

The next thing he knew, the sounds of the skirmish had stopped. Even though Zuke didn’t really have a physical body anymore, the bright light after having gotten used to the darkness still blinded him, and he needed to take more than a few moments to readjust. Everyone in the tunnel had paused as they slowly registered the change in circumstances.

Immediately followed by a shadow bull charging, knocking and pinning down the knife wielder.  
  


West hooted, hand outstretched in a guiding gesture towards his living shadow as he wasted no time in working his magic.

"Ahaaa! [NOW we're talking! You really thought you could shoot down the Great DK West like a dog?] Well, missy, [I say my turn to take the lead in this dance keh?] EWAH!"

"Is the blackout over?! I thought you had shut the whole system here down!" The ringleader struggled, locked in fierce pushing war against a giant warrior bull. Of course, she couldn't actually stab a shadow, and she snapped her attention towards the other two goons. 

"I dunno boss! It _should_ be down but we've ran so far away from their base it shouldn't matter anyways!"

"Do something, stupid!"  
  


West, feeling better about his odds, charged at the remaining two thugs with a warcry and knocked each of them against opposite sides of the tunnel. One of them raised their weapon, but the large man managed to get ahold of the metal pole and sharply yanked it out of the thug's hands.

Meanwhile, the ringleader had managed to break herself free from the shadow bull, rolling on the ground after almost having her wrist snapped by an intangible hoof. The shadow puppet glared as it turned to bullrush them all down the tunnel, with DK West grinning smugly and doing a finger gun at the trio with his free hand. His shadow wouldn’t hurt him, but everyone else? Swept off their feet.  
It was curtains for the goons.  
  
Or… it _seemed_ curtains until the third one panicked and threw his baseball bat at the light Zuke was currently inhabiting, cracking it. He felt no pain when it happened, only saw the metal bat flying at him followed by a discomfort like his body was momentarily pulled apart before it stopped right before any damage was done. But it did make him cringe.

_'Ow...'  
  
_

...West's grin faded as the tunnel was blanketed in darkness once again and his shadow disappeared, right before he could have called victory.

"Ah."

"...So whose turn to dance?" Jeered the leader, standing with her knife in hand and the other two disarmed, but still healthy, goons.

To West's credit, he didn't try to run or was any more cowed than he'd been, instead bouncing in place in cheerful dance and making a grand gesture to the woman with a hand while he held his 'borrowed' metal pole over his shoulder, smiling all the while.

"Aish, missy, [so angry one. We can dance together if you wanted! Share the spotlight! Don't need to take over the place to impress me, fiery spirit you have enough!]"

"Eugh. Gross."

The odds were still not that great, but West’s chances had grown to roughly 50/50, and it looked like he chose to take them.

The two stared at each other for a long moment in a tense standoff, one in fury, other resolute.  
Until the knife wielder snarled.  
  


 _'You know what?'_ Zuke thought, wrapping his essence into the mechanisms of the now sparking safety light to try and dig out the LEDs he knew hid in there.  
 _'I think I’m about done being a spectator here.'  
  
_

And before she could lunge at his brother… a falling light cracked her head.

She squeaked at the impact, standing on her feet for a moment before she faltered, hands to her head.  
  


“Owww…”

“Whoa!” One of the two goons walked forwards, hoisting her by an arm before she could fall down. “...You good sis?”

Zuke blinked, realizing what he had done.

 _'Oh. Uh. That… wasn’t what I was trying to do. Oops...  
_ _...I’ll take it, though. Please don't, uh, don't die.'_

  
“Yyyyeahh shure… am great, lemme just, go at him…” Warbled the dazed ringleader. By this point the third one had gotten over there to help her stand up as well, any semblance of continuing the fight gone. Even West had dropped his guard, expression torn between confused, smug and somewhat concerned.

“Yeah no, this has escalated like way too much sis.”

“[...Sooo does this mean we done here?] Very ok if so.”

“Shut the hell up, we ain’t talking to you.”

West made a mock-disbelieving ‘ish ish’ noise as he advanced forwards, hands to his waist and causing the remaining goons with still full mental capacity to tense.

“Aiseh... [Shouldn’t talk back to the guy you in the mercy of lah. You wanna go with THE DK West when he holds the hitting stick?]” He underlined his intent by tapping the metal pole he’d stolen from one of them against his other hand.

“Uhh…”

  
The ringleader wasn’t even participating, and could only mumble half coherently. The goons eyed each other nervously.

“...Counterrevolution beats a tactical retreat?”

“...Counterrevolution go. Don’t fall asleep sis!!” The older of the two thugs yelped before backpedaling, dragging the concussed woman (and incidentally his shorter ally) as he ran the way they came.   
  


“That’s right! Cabut! [That what you got for tripping up DK WEST!]” He posed with every syllable of his name as the goons ran into the darkness, his voice echoing down the sewer tunnels. “[And don’t come back here got it? Or I do worse than that!] E-E-E-EWAH!”

There was no answer to his crowing as the gang disappeared past a corner.  
  


His display of bravado continued until the trio was long gone into the darkness, their steps having faded into the wet background noises. Only then, once the rapper was well and truly alone ( _or so he thought_ ) did the manic grin leave West’s face, turning into obvious discomfort and a quiet groan as he slid down against the sewer’s wall.

Zuke watched his brother’s sudden change in behavior with a furrowed brow. “ _West, are you doing alright?_ ” He asked, only to remember a moment later he couldn’t be heard in his ghostly state. It... really was going to take some getting used to. The drummer made an unhappy grunt towards himself, only able to watch his elder brother crash after that adrenaline rush.

The large man remained against the dusty wall, a hand placed over his chest as he recovered his breathing.  
  


“[Worse than that… Psh.] Like what?” He sighed, sounding almost… dejected. “Jangan perasan West.”

_'Okay, now he is acting really weird.'  
  
_

His older brother sat up slightly, eyeing the metal pole he’d snatched with a repulsed frown. Grabbing it from both sides, he bent it with his bare hands until it cracked in two then threw it away with a metallic clang. With the weapon disposed of, West shook his injured hand and let out a pained hiss before putting his lips to the stab wound, either blowing on the injury or licking off the blood - _Zuke couldn’t be sure, it wouldn’t be unlike his brother to deem that good enough treatment_ -.  
  
 _'What the hell, West_ _don’t do that. That can’t be hygienic, we’re in a sewer_! _Er… an unsanitized sewer, I mean.'_  
  


Thinking back… what was all that about?

Counter-revolution. That was what these people called themselves. So, the drummer had to guess, their appearance was likely in response to the Rock Revolution that May and him staged. Unless there were some other revolutions he didn’t hear about in between the time when he… _died_ … and the time he woke up again. But West didn’t look any older, and their home still looked lived in, so he doubted enough time had passed for anything like that.  
  
 _'Maybe Tatiana had more of a point than I thought when she said we were setting a bad precedent. But... I thought it would take much longer for there to be this kind of consequence! And what for? I really doubt May turned around and took over NSR the moment I was out of the picture.'_

Honestly the more he thought about these guys ganging up on his big brother, the angrier Zuke was getting, to a degree he was making himself uncomfortable. He couldn’t help it, however. The realization that they either waited for a blackout or messed with the power in the sewers themselves before taking on West just heightened Zuke’s resentment.  
 _'I hope I didn’t become some sort of vengeful wraith or anything like that. I don’t really want to hurt anybody. Except these guys. Maybe.'_

All in all he didn’t feel too bad about accidentally cracking a safety light on that woman’s head.  
Mostly.

Zuke sighed and decided to dismiss the roiling thoughts from his head to take a good look at his new surroundings. Because he had been possessing the LED lamp before he’d dropped it instead of lighting the room up, he now found himself on the floor, still inside the destroyed thing. Good to know an object being broken didn’t actually hurt him, at least. He would try not to drop himself inside a smelter or something like that.  
Above him in the ceiling, the exposed wiring from where he’d released the light was visible. A few feet away, the abandoned metal bat and the broken pieces of the pole, then the stream of _liquid_ as might be expected in a sewer. 

And then there was his older brother, unmoving, still sitting against a wall he stared into the darkness of the abandoned tunnels with a frown in his face.  
  


_Bro’s probably still in shock… C’mon, West. I didn’t split someone’s head open just so you can sit there looking like that._

Zuke tried to reach around for some other object to hitchhike upon. There was the broken metal shaft, and the bat laying around, but unlike his experience with the wires nothing happened when he tried to grab onto them. They just rejected him. 

That just left DK West as the only other ‘ _thing_ ’ left in his range. Hm.  
  


To Zuke’s surprise, he did actually get a grip when he reached towards his brother.  
  
The ghostly drummer gawked for a moment in awkward surprise. Could he like… possess other people? Was that something he could do? He couldn’t remember being able to grab on the technicians… Maybe it was because he was his brother?  
Curioser and curioser, and Zuke’s curiosity was indeed piqued.  
  


 _'I suppose only one way to find out._ _  
__Wait, what if I can’t let him go afterwards? I don’t wanna grand theft body-!'_

“♪~I’m a little zonkey! Heehaw! Heehaw!~♪”

His immediate reaction was cut off by DK West’s high pitched terror squeal.

Zuke wheezed in the throes of barely restrained laughter.  
 _'Oh my god, he’s still carrying that thing!'  
  
_

Spooked so badly he’d climbed to his feet, West hurriedly dug through his coat. He had patted everywhere along his sides before he finally felt the hard square shape through his clothes and pulled out the old tape recorder.

“Promise you’ll never ever play this again?” Continued the tape in his big brother’s hand, Zuke’s young voice blissfully unaware. “Hmm, okay. ♪~I’m a little zonkey! Heehaw! Heehaw!~♪”

Mystery solved. He hadn’t actually possessed his brother, it was the tape recorder in his pockets. Though Zuke couldn’t say he minded the outcome. His poor older brother had been surprised enough by the recorder that he’d opened his usually squinting eyes, deep red and uncomfortably similar to what the drummer would see in a mirror.  
  
Zuke felt a little bad, really, he _did_ , but one look at West’s stumped face undid all his efforts to keep himself composed. He dissolved into ugly laughing wheezes. The part of him that had not grown up since secondary school felt quite gleeful about the damn tape that had been used to terrorize him for years becoming the instrument of his revenge.

 _“You know, man,”_ Zuke chortled, only mostly managing to compose himself. _“Kinda serves you right for not throwing away the tape when you promised to all those years ago.”  
  
_

West turned off the recording with a click of his thumb. His expression had turned first contemplative, then uncharacteristically fond. He patted the device a couple times as if he were petting a cat.

“[Okay, okay little Zukie. I’m being dumb, you got a point. You get to laugh.] This time only.”

 _“Huh?”_ Zuke immediately snapped to attention. _“Wait- Can you hear me?"  
  
_

But West didn’t respond. He simply began walking with a dancing gait, bouncing to an imaginary beat as he hummed and kept the tape recorder in his hands.

 _"Oh."_  
Zuke deflated. He wasn’t heard, it was just coincidence. And a very accurate guess on his older brother’s part of how he would react.

_'That’s what brothers are like, I suppose.'  
  
_

Well, he was now trapped inside the tape recorder. Might as well go along for the ride.  
  


But as DK West made his way back, he halted for a moment to stare down at the remains of the lamp that had struck the thug on the head. His thoughtful gaze was followed by looking up at the exposed wires at the ceiling of the tunnel, and then finally at the old tape recorder.

After a moment’s thought, West played the recording again.  
  


“♪~I’m a little zonkey! Heehaw! Heehaw!~♪”

Smiling, West continued down the tunnel, whatever conclusion he’d reached left unsaid and leaving his secret passenger wondering.

___  
  


Zuke didn’t get to wonder about what his brother was doing in the sewer tunnels for very long before West threw him another curveball by entering their own _house_.  
As in, Bunk Bed Junction’s cleaned up section of the sewers.  
  
The familiarity with which he did so was kind of startling, too. With all these people they’d invited over, maybe Zuke should’ve really looked into putting up some kind of security system… Maybe it really wasn't a mystery how Kliff could find the way to their lair.

West entered through the door to Ellie’s room and walked up to their living room, stopping at the doorframe to stare up at the lights with a confused head tilt.  
 _Oh, right_. Zuke had turned on the power before stumbling upon West. It had been dark when he’d come into the sewer.

In any case the rapper seemed to shrug off the change in the environment with little thought, moving over to the large couch and flopping bodily on it without a care, where he sprawled as long as he was. Which was quite a lot. West was lucky that Zuke couldn’t nag at him to be more careful with the couch; like nearly everything they owned, the couch was second hand and probably kinda fragile. He might tolerate Mayday doing it, sure, but May was May and she also wasn’t the size of a small car. 

Though, given what happened minutes earlier… yeah, Zuke didn’t feel like being too hard on his brother this time.  
  


DK West stretched and made an exhausted groan before blowing on his stabbed hand again, and putting down the tape recorder on the couch. The moment the recorder was set down, Zuke reached out into the room’s electrical circuit, first through the tv remote and then their Master Wolfe arcade. He may not have any legs to stretch anymore but it still felt good not to be confined. Maybe ghosts do get restless.  
The undead rocker was quickly beginning to piece together his new limits, faster the longer he experimented with them. He was… not ‘ _alive_ ’, not really, but he appeared to be tied to electricity somehow. He could possess objects, and hop between them... But only if they required power to work. Not every single thing would do.

_'So I’m like… an electrical poltergeist? Tied to power lines and electronics… I thought ghosts were supposed to throw around books and send messages via ouija boards, but it doesn’t look like I can do either of those things.'_

Just to test his theory, he reached from the TV remote to the book set on top of the coffee table. It rejected him just like the baseball bat.

_'Huh.'  
  
_

He had never heard of ghosts being like this, but then again paranormal investigation never was one of his interests in the first place. Zuke always thought that behind each unexplained event there was a logical explanation, even in a place as occasionally insane as Vinyl City tended to be. Had he had this kind of knowledge earlier ( _of watching spirits and existence after death and ghosts in the machine and music in the soul_ ), he probably would’ve found the topic of the occult at least slightly more interesting in life.

Too bad he couldn’t really make a good use of it now.

...

Zuke made the motion of bringing a hand to his hair. His body still was as translucent as ever but he still could feel the phantom feeling of touch.

_'Oh man, I’m... really a ghost…'_

Even with a few hours worth of time to process this, it was still just as hard to swallow.   
He was thankfully distracted from a thought spiral by the sound of his older brother moving.  
  
DK West had pulled out a cellphone from somewhere within his coat, almost ridiculously small compared to the size of his hands. He was typing in something one letter at a time, biting his tongue in concentration to avoid mistyping with his huge and potentially screen-covering fingers. Zuke smiled to himself, part perplexed part amused by how carefully his brother had to work to even get anything done, before he heard the sound of dialing. The thought that West might struggle to operate the phone hadn't even occured to him before. Thinking about it, maybe it would’ve been easier on his brother to ask him to call back instead of text. Or he could've gotten him one of those giant phones for old folks...  
West lifted the phone to his head, though not too closely.   
  


“Hello! DJ Zam from Zam FM on the phone! Unfortunately we’re not currently taking music requests or questions, as we’ve ran into a bit of a problem at the recording booth-”

“Ey macha.” West cut off Zam, sounding satisfied. “Kautim liao.”

“-West!” Zam exclaimed immediately, sounding overjoyed and perking Zuke’s curiosity immediately.  
  


_'These two know each other?'  
  
_

“You actually managed it? That’s amazing, gotta go back right away! H-how are you holding up?”

“Fuh huh huh” West chuckled, laying back. “Boleh tahan lah, [I am - _the_ \- DK West after all! Ewah!]” The large man grinned and beat his chest, before his expression fell slightly as he worried a thumb over his left eye socket. A black eye was definitely starting to form by this point. “[...Maybe a little trouble I admit. They didn’t want to talk it over.]”

“...You aren’t too hurt, are you?”

“No lah, [nothing too much trouble for somebody like me!]”

“If you’re sure.” Zam replied uncertainly. “Hold on tight. I am sure Bunk Bed Junction kept some first aid around the room to tend to themselves during the whole revolution business.”

“Nono, chop, DJ. [Don’t care about that right now.]” Zam began making a light disgruntled noise but was interrupted by West. ”[Find anything on our little missy?]”

“Little miss- oh. Nope… sorry. No dice. Apparently she was at the plaza out today, playing at the memorial, but I didn’t learn about that until just now because of the, uh… ‘bully’ situation.”

“Aduh...” West whistled through his teeth in irritation. ”Ok, tak apa. [Expected that already.]” 

“To be fair, I don’t think either of us would’ve gotten to her anyways. Tatiana was also there. She’s been very good at making sure nobody pesters Mayday without a good reason.”

If Zuke had ears to perk, they’d be high as a hound’s on the trail when that name was mentioned.  
The ghostly drummer had taken to exploring along the wiring on the wall during the conversation, leaving a trail of turned on devices as he tested out what he could and couldn’t do. The Master Wolfe machine blinked its game over screen, which West had thankfully not noticed, but he did stare with a blank expression when Zuke turned on the TV. Whatever they were showing, it was the middle of a commercial break.

“Good reason?” West parroted and sat up slightly, picking the phone back up and scowling. He also patted the seat of the couch under him, likely to check if he had sat down on the remote. Of course, there was nothing. “[We are] good reason! [What can we even do to her ah? We’re not journalists.]”

“Uh, don’t take this badly West, but I know you’re not precisely seen in a good light by NSR. And, er… Tatiana once tuned in to my talk show with B2J so I think I kind of count as a news reporter.”  
  


Speak of the devil, it would seem, as the jingle for the Vinyl City Report rang out from the TV speakers.

“Five hours ago, the reconnection of the repaired Grand Qwasa to Vinyl City’s power grid caused a cascading blackout that affected every district of the city, temporarily plunging it into nigh unprecedented darkness before recurring again two hours later. Now, at 11 PM, it seems the situation is finally under control.”  
  


West made a small grumble, but seemed inclined to agree with Zam. His eyes had turned back to the screen however, attention split between the phone and the news on screen as he got up to get the TV remote.

“Feeh… [Hate it that you right. Can’t give up though,]” The older brother pumped up a fist, remote now in hand. “[Hope they get bored of turning me away at the gate soon.]”

“That’s right! We just got to… bide our time, I suppose. Got to keep the other sewer dwellers in check and updated in the meanwhile.”  
  


Tatiana appeared on screen, seated on her customary desk. Several mics were held towards the CEO’s stern face. Somewhat to Zuke’s surprise, she still had the magmalike hairdo and lava lines on her face, though she had replaced her magenta pince nez shades.  
Her appearance stilled DK West's hand before he could turn off the TV.

“As many of you are well aware of, NSR has nothing but the utmost respect and love for the citizens of our beloved city. We were reassured, again and again, that the repaired Grand Qwasa was safe and suitable to reconnect to the main city and qwasa-sync power grids. Clearly, we were lied to. And for that I sincerely apologize.”  
  


“West?” Zam called from the other side of the line with clear concern. DK West shook his head back to attention.

“Here lah, […I leave you to that DJ. Will check on NSR tower later. Need to, ehh… do something now. Anything wrong, then roger me wei.] West out!”

“Call you later West, be safe!” Answered DJ Zam before West hung up, breathing a low sigh as he sat down on the couch again.  
  


Now it was just them and the TV. Its cracked screen flickered almost ominously. The ending to Tatiana’s speech droned on in the new silence of the room.

“Of course, the people responsible for this breach of trust have been suitably reprimanded, with a new work team assigned to the reparations of the Grand Qwasa. And to the people and new musicians who are upset at these news, I ask only for a little bit more patience. Though these obstacles are unfortunate, it is only a matter of time until Vinyl City flourishes, brighter and fairer than ever.”

As the news cut to another scene, Zuke couldn’t help but notice that Tatiana’s usual stern tone sounded more jaded than he ever heard it.  
  


West made a huffing noise.  
  
The screen then cut back to a view of the Festival Plaza, lit up once again, though in a more… reserved capacity than Zuke had seen it earlier in the day. The screens were off and so were the billboards and neons, leaving on mostly necessity lighting from streetlamps and shop interiors. Despite the comparative silence, there were still people along the street.

The voice of the VCR newscaster took over once again.

“The cleanup of the Rock Revolution is thus still underway, though not every outcome is grim. Following NSR’s rework and backing of indie music, previously underground artists and bands are coming to the forefront. Although it is yet unclear what the diminished importance of Megastars might come to mean to these upstarts, the resuming Lights Up Audition promises to be more interesting than ever. Bunk Bed Junction’s unfortunate end has left independent musicians without an important figurehead, and clawing for public attention against corporate backed music will not be easy without their eye-catching stunts. It is for this reason that among the participants of this potential ‘ _indie spring_ ’, ‘B2J’ appears to have become a rallying call.”  
  
 _Rallying... call?_

Cut to- oh, that reporter guy again. Zuke frowned, the dude might just be doing his job, but also seeing him now gave him secondhand anxiety. _At least give him a warning before filming him with a crumby face…  
_ The headline he read along the bottom of the screen, in all caps and bold red face, only made the pit in his stomach drop harder.  
  


_‘ **MAYDAY: THE NEW KUL FYRA?’**_

“Mayday, B2J’s guitarist and only remaining member, was spotted in public for the first time since the Rock Revolution! Mere hours before today’s blackout, Mayday was filmed during a solo performance at the Festival Plaza, but NSR’s tight security prevented our news crew from approaching for an interview.”

The ‘ _tight security_ ’ mentioned by the reporter revealed itself in the clip to be none other than Tatiana once again as she stood among the crowd, wearing a Goolings leather jacket and giving the news crew a stink eye so vile they just packed up their cameras and ran off the way they came. Zuke would’ve found it absolutely hysterical if his heart wasn’t racing with an unnatural beat for an entirely different reason, barely noticeable in the clip behind the crowd.

“Two weeks after the destruction of the Grand Qwasa, a common fear has begun manifesting in the music scene. With B2J gone the way of The Goolings, many ask: Will history finish repeating? Will Mayday disappear like legendary guitarist Kul Fyra, leaving the new ‘ _spring of indie music_ ’ to fend for itself? Only time will tell, but the fears only grow as the silence continues.” 

_‘May…’_

He was not really listening anymore, his eyes fixed to the hunched orange silhouette sitting down with a guitar and turned away from view. He could not see much, the clip unfocused and blurry from the movement, but just the posture and situation alone were worrying enough to Zuke.  
The only thing that kept him from getting carried away with spiralling what-ifs was the tone-deaf melodrama about Kul Fyra’s disappearance.  
While Tatiana was right there, on the clip. Being as unsubtle about her true identity as she physically could without bursting into flame and belting out an old hit under a neon with the text GOOLINGS.  
It just… added to the surrealism, turning unintentionally reassuring to Zuke.

_If she truly is the new Kul Fyra, then May’s not going to disappear anywhere._   
  


_‘You know, I… kind of begin to question their journalistic instinct.’_

  
All too soon the screen changed anyways, depriving him of that inkling of familiarity.

“While the lifespan of the rebellious indie band has been short-lived, it's impact continues to prove deep-reaching,” Continued the newscaster, to Zuke’s disgruntled ‘ _ouch_ ’, “Not only for the music scene but for the politics of Vinyl City. Concern regarding the effects of Qwasa technology failure continue to arise following investigation on the death of B2J drummer Zuke, and the startling revelation the power spike was strong enough for human disintegration-”

**_-CRUNCH.-_ **

**__ **

_“Can everyone please stop victimizing my TV?!_ ” Zuke complained in exasperation as DK West pulled away his fist from the screen. _  
_

For his part, at least West seemed to have the decency to look slightly sheepish, looking around as if to check if he was seen trashing the poor device before dusting the television with a hand and straightening up like he never did anything wrong.  
This being DK West, it wasn’t a convincing act.  
  


“Eeesh. [Sure nobody will notice a little _more_ cracking…]” The giant of a man mused to himself, though Zuke had the feeling his brother would act far less concerned about it if he knew he was around to watch. Just a little hunch.  
  


Though while he was pretty annoyed… the ghostly drummer had to admit that punching the TV because West didn’t want to hear about his dead brother was by far the most understandable reason his poor TV had been punched for yet. Zuke was… not exactly ready to think and really examine his situation yet. He wasn’t sure of his brother’s state of mind either, but it couldn’t have been that much better. Left to continue, he would’ve turned it off himself. 

By pressing the off button. Because he was a _reasonable person_.  
Reasonable _ghost_.  
Reasonable ghostly person?

“ _Yes they will,_ ” Zuke grumbled at his older brother in vain, unheard, meanwhile West picked up the tape recorder and cellphone before scampering away from the TV and the living room. “ _...Where are you going?_ ”

___  
  


“Stop squirming, kiddo. It’s just povidone.”

“Aku tidak-” West started before hissing through his teeth as Aunty swabbed around the stab wound on his hand with a cotton ball damp with the antiseptic. Zuke watched from the cash register he was haunting as the large man just sagged and gave up any attempt to seem bold.

After the incident with the TV, West had booked it out of the sewers, wearing an uneasy expression that Zuke couldn’t quite decipher. Left with more questions than answers, the drummer had chosen to follow his older brother through the wiring until he got his feelings sorted, at which point West was immediately intercepted by Aunty. He might have been able to shrug off DJ Zam’s questioning, but it took one look at the bruises for the gentle hearted mamak owner to turn on the Certified Mama Bear mode and not take a no for an answer. Zuke had to appreciate the energy needed to have his boisterous brother act cowed.

Aunty gave West a light smack to the arm to gain his attention as she began wrapping his hand in gauze. She sounded miffed. “Be more careful, please. Look at this! It almost goes straight through your hand. Through, your, hand! And then what would you do ah? You might need stitches!”

“Ahhh, c’mon lah, [it’s not that bad! If the power didn’t go die then would’ve been all alright! Not like I thought I kena cut like that, I went to talk, not to rgh…]” West interrupted himself with a small grunt as she gently brushed the edge of his black eye with a thumb in inspecting it. "[...Not what happened.]”

“West, dearie, do you think I’m daft?”

“Daft wat-? [Of course not!]”

“Then clearly you are, since you went down there by yourself knowing they were aggressive, and you are the opposite of a polite smooth talker. Do you think I’m not aware of the comings and goings in the sewers? Half the community came to me for jobs and breakfast.” Aunty put her arms to her waist, staring down at his older brother with an uncharacteristically unreadable expression."What were you expecting would happen?"

West began by opening his mouth, closing it when he had no immediate response to fling back, before shrugging his shoulders. “[Not sure. Can trashtalk one other like good little men ah? Cannot sit there and let them do anything!]” He did falter a little as Aunty’s expression did not change. “Cannot, okay.”

As the conversation trailed off, Zuke sighed and glanced out into the street. He was glad DK West at least was... if not happy to accept help, then at least responding to reason.  
It would not have been such a struggle to get him to back down, long ago. West had always been bold and boisterous, but at least he always listened to reason. He was not sure when that changed, or why. It really had been a long time. Sometimes, Zuke still yearned for simpler days, when West and him were still tight, working together instead of against each other. No way go back to such a relationship with his brother now.  
He raised a hand to his face and closed his eyes as he took the moment to metaphorically sit himself down and put his ailing mind to some measure of rest, because if he didn't at least attempt to do so his skull was going to implode sometime soon.

So.  
  


First order of business: He had been dead for about two weeks.  
He could live with that. It wasn’t ideal ( _honestly, no part of this situation was ideal_ ) but at least it wasn’t like, four years after he was a goner. He was not sure there was anything he could’ve done for anyone by that point.  
...Which was both a blessing and a curse. Two weeks? If anything ugly were to happen as a consequence to his death, it was gonna be around this timeframe, and Zuke was gonna get a front row seat to it.

 _‘But it also means if there is anything I can do about it, I’m still in a good position to stop it. I’m… afraid about what I might find about May and Eve, but I’m gonna have to face the facts if I want to do something right, and that’s that.  
At least West seems to be doing okay.’  
_ _  
_Zuke mused, glancing over to his brother as Aunty offered him a cold press for his black eye.  
 _‘Well… mostly okay. -Kind- of okay. At least emotionally he doesn’t seem too hit?’  
_ _  
_

Second in priority order: Mayday was in hiding. Apparently she had been in hiding ever since the… thing that made him like this. And she had to be avoiding the sewers and sewer-dwellers too if they couldn’t catch a whiff or hair of hers either.  
  
This was… bad.  
Like, very bad.

May was not a hider. She was a rush in, confront head on, ‘ _bunka junka bam in your face and care about consequences later_ ’ type of problem solver. In her defense, it usually worked out pretty well for her. Sure, she tended to drag him into serious shenanigans, but she also was the one to get things done between the two of them. Honestly, if it were up to him? As confident in his drumming as he is ( _he was_ ) he likely would’ve never had the courage to show up to the Lights Up Audition by himself. It was May who presented the idea and convinced him into it; left to his own devices he would’ve forever stuck to the underground scene- or worse, switched to EDM in an attempt to fit in.  
If she was hiding from everyone altogether...

 _‘Then again,’_ The drummer sighed to himself, _‘I suppose this is the one problem that cannot be junka’d away.’_

Zuke wasn’t too surprised that May was hit hard by his absence. They were best of friends and almost family, maybe… maybe something more, if they had more time. The drummer never found the courage, or the right time, or a meaningful opportunity to ask.  
Well... that possibility was well out of the window by this point. No sense depressing himself with what-ifs. At _least he’d saved her some heartbreak.  
_ He only hoped that when he got there, the damage wasn’t too horrible.  
  


Third issue… and he couldn’t help but stare out at his older brother as Aunty seemed to deem her care done, leaving him with a drink as she went off to serve other customers.

West was looking for Mayday. He’d teamed up with the sewer dwellers (or at least DJ Zam) to do it.

When did West learn where their home was? Okay, so. They weren’t exactly too well hidden, true. Just hidden enough people blatantly looking for trouble would be turned away by Aunty or otherwise. But he still had to have come across somebody who could tell him that.  
What did he want to do with Mayday? How did he meet their friends? Who were the guys back at the sewer? Zuke had so many questions, and no voice with which to speak them. It did not seem like West was particularly forthcoming with what he was doing anymore, either, slowly faceplanting onto the table with drink in hand now that he didn't have the adrenaline rush to carry him on. He did deserve the rest, to be fair.

_‘Reminds me of finals week.’  
  
_

Fourth, and certainly not least…  
...Zuke was dead, but he wasn’t helpless.

He wasn’t helpless.

_He wasn’t helpless!!  
  
_

This was such an important gamechanger, and he was outright furious with Scratch for not mentioning it earlier. It would certainly have helped ease the doom and gloom lingering at the back of his head at least _some_. 

True, yes, he was pretty limited on what he could do. Turn on lights. Turn on generators. Mess with anything electrical. It was not much, but it was something.  
It certainly had made a difference for West.  
And it was this realization that both filled him with energy and soothed his fraying mind like a balm.

Zuke didn’t need to be an absent spectator. He could actually fix things. _He could do something_! Be _useful_!

He could… say hello?

It was such a stupid idea. But the moment it popped into his mind he couldn’t let go of it. There was probably a hundred reasons why he shouldn’t do that, if he even _could_ do that, as a dead guy who should want his loved ones to let go. But the thought clung to his mind like a vine.

“ _I could say hello. With a radio. Or a flashlight. Maybe light fixtures? As far as I know she doesn't know morse, but it’s worth a shot. She might recognize the patterns, right?_ ”  
  


West got up from his seat as Aunty took back his empty glass, stretching his back like some sort of gigantic cat. They had to have been talking for a while, Zuke guessed. He didn’t have a clock, and he didn't have any in sight either, but it had to be well past midnight.

“This is just my thoughts,” Aunty said at a low volume, “I’m not saying you cannot take care of yourself, but I don’t think the people here can handle another familiar face being gone. What happened to the kids hurt them enough, so don't.” 

“Eleh, [not going to be diving into angry crowds anytime okay! You putting too much thought in this, too much. I’m here to groove, not make change. DK West is unforgettable of course, but heartbreak people meh? Ya kah?]”

“Lots of people here remember you from years ago, you know. You stand for more than just your music now, West. It would be a shame to disappoint them all.”

West seemed to be struck dumb for a moment before he frowned and glanced down, brushing back his braids with a massive hand.

“Ya. Would be a shame.” He rolled his shoulders. “[Think it's time to head back to my crib. Thanks for the drink, and, uh…]” He paused, palming the cold press over his bruised eye, “[...Everything else.]”  
  
The words almost seemed foreign to Zuke’s ears, coming from West.  
It really had been a while.  
  


“No problem, dearie,” Aunty answered back in her higher pitched, kinder register. “Have a good night!”

As West grinned and struck a pose before retreating to his wagon, the ghostly drummer slipped back down from the lights circuit of the mamak into the wider power grid. 

_‘Yeah, I think you deserve to catch a nap. Night, brother. Please don't get into anymore trouble._ ’

For now, Zuke had a plan.


End file.
